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UNANSWERABLE LOGIC: 



A SERIES OF 



SPIRITUAL DISCOURSES, 



GIVEN THROUGH THE MEDIUMSHIP OF 



THOMAS GALES FOESTER. 







BOSTON: 
COLBY & RICH, PUBLISHERS. 

No. 9 BoswoRTH Street. 

1887. 



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Copyright by Carrie Grimes Forster, 1887. 



INTEODUCTION. 



Bear Readers^ — The beloved medium through whom the 
following thoughts reached the earth-sphere, transplanted as it 
were from the land of the immortal to the home of the mortal, 
was Thomas Gales Forster, who was born into physical life 
at Charleston, South Carolina, May 14, 1816, and born into 
spirit-life at Washington, D. C, March 23, 1886. 

He was the son of Rev. Anthony Forster, who went into the 
investigation of Unitarianism in order to dispel the error which 
he decided enveloped the mind of his wife's father. 

The examination ended in his embracing the tenets of that 
advanced school of thought. 

The grandfather of Mr. Forster had been obliged to flee from 
England for his advocacy, in his paper, of parliamentary repre- 
sentation, and also for the publication of the works of Thomas 
Paine. 

Thus it will be seen that this instrument for the angel-world 
inherited progressive ideas, and his mind was attuned to angelic 
inspiration. 

He had also education and cultivation ; and when he left the 
editorial chair in St. Louis, Mo., and embarked in a cause the 
advocacy of which was then considered a proof of mental imbe- 
cility, he was prepared, in an uncommon degree, for the use of 
the angels ; for we know the better the instrument the more 
musical the utterances. 

It is to be regretted that the events that transpired in the 
early pioneer days were not noted by him, as they would form 
a wonderful addendum to the history of the spiritual move- 

C3) 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

ment, and would also yield an insight into the life-line of this 
gifted man. 

Persecution and deprivation marked his pathway, even to the 
extent of personal violence, — threatened and prepared. But 
heavier than all this outward martyrdom was the ostracism and 
neglect of relatives and former friends. To one of his sensitive 
nature, this was painful beyond expression, and not easily to be 
borne. 

But, as he now bathes in the brightness and effulgence of the 
upper sanctuary of the Father, the glory -land of righteous com- 
pensation, I doubt not he blesses his every experience, and 
would not have one of them omitted. 

He realized that the cause to which he had devoted himself 
was of such immense worth that no detraction could mar its 
value nor lessen its importance. 

So he labored on until failing health compelled a partial re- 
linquishment of the rostrum. His guides, assured that lectures 
could be written in the privacy of his room more easily, and 
with less strain upon the physical body, than if delivered in the 
midst of opposing influences, and it may be anticipating this 
future use, gave the following pages, that are now presented to 
the world by his loving and grateful wife, in the hope that they 
may prove instrumental in the enlightenment and benefiting 
cf many of earth's children ; a star to guide to the better land ; 
a chart, or compass, to direct to the haven of rest and peace ; 
a beacon light upon the storm-tossed billows of their earthly 
existence. 

With the prayer that the multitudes of weary ones may gain 
knowledge of the beautiful hereafter from these pages, and by 
them be enabled to more intelligently appreciate the blessings 
of the present life, 

In the interest of humanity, 

I am faithfully yours, 

Carrie Grimes Forster. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTUEE I. 

What is Spiritualism ? 7 

LECTURE II. 

The Spiritual Body, 28 

LECTURE III. 
The Analogy Existing between the Facts of the Bible 
AND the Facts of Spiritualism, 48 

LECTURE IV. 
Philosophy of Death, 73 

LECTURE V. 
What Lies Beyond the Veil, 91 

LECTURE VL 
The Final Resurrection, 106 

LECTURE VII. 

Future Rewards and Punishments, 126 

LECTURE VIIL 
Joan of Arc, 143 

LECTURE IX. 

Human Destiny, 160 

LECTURE X. 
The Spiritualism of the Apostles, 177 

LECTURE XL 

Heaven, 197 

(5) 



6 CONTENTS. 

LECTUBE XII. 
Hell, 213 

LECTURE XIII. 
The Devotional Elemknt in Man, 232 

LECTURE XIV. 

THANKSGrV'ING Day, 249 

LECTURE XV. 
Do WE Ever Forget? *. . . . 265 

LECTURE XVI. 
Clairvoyance and Clairaudience, 282 

LECTURE XVII. 
What Spiritualists Believe, 305 

LECTURE XVIIL 
Spiritualism without an Adjective, 323 

LECTURE XIX. 
Christmas and its Suggestions, . 340 

LECTURE XX. 
Protoplasm, 359 

LECTURE XXI. 
Anniversary Address, 374 

LECTURE XXII. 
Spiritualists and Mediu^ms, 384 

LECTURE XXIII. 
Ye have Bodies, but ye are Spirits ; the Spirit the Real 
Man, 402 

LECTURE XXIV. 
The Unity of God, 421 



UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 



LECTURE I. 

WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 



I AM well aware that there are many in this community, and 
there may be some in this audience, who have been in the habit 
of looking upon the subject matter of Spiritualism as a vision 
of some new Atlantis, — born of the imagination, and destined 
to die from the first hard grip, as it were, of material thought ; 
or, perhaps, as they have looked upon the beautiful phantom 
pursued by Shelley's Alastor along the borders of a silent wood, 
and down the weird windings of a rapid river, until he awoke 
amid the barren realities of a desert ! Nevertheless, after the 
lapse of thirty years of earnest inquiry, I am the willing advo- 
cate of this system, from an honest conviction of its truth, — 
from an honest conviction that, in comparison with all anteced- 
ent and surrounding faiths, Spiritualism exists like unto a ma- 
jestic column in a desert plain, — rich in splendor, and in the 
beauty of an indescribably grand architecture ! And that, like 
ocean's rock, it is destined to successfully withstand the wrath 
of every billow, and the storm of every sky, whilst under 
its benign and healthful influences Earth's living heart shall 
yet glow with the fires of love divine, — showers of golden rain 
fall all over her withered landscapes, and even the tomb grow 
beautiful with Eden's deathless bloom ! 

The seventeenth century. Prof. Huxley very justly remarks, 

(7) 



8 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

in one of his lay sermons, constituted one of the most important 
eras in the intellectual experiences of the race. During that 
century the physical sciences arrested the attention of mankind 
more effectually than ever before, giving an impulse to human 
thought, and an impetus to the spirit of inquiry, the influences 
of which are felt today, and will continue to be felt as long as 
this green-browed earth of ours shall remain the patient " mother 
of the whirlwind and the storm." During the period referred 
to, the physical sciences, we are told, challenged not only the 
philosophy of the age, together with the then existing common 
sense of the race, but likewise the wonderful influences of the 
Church, that for many centuries had controlled the destinies of 
Europe. The attempt of Galileo in 1G33 to establish the sys- 
tem of Copernicus as to the revolution of the earth around the 
sun, as you well know, was in direct opposition to the faith 
and teachings of all three of these authorities ; and he met 
with extreme persecution, especially from the Church, for the 
announcement of his views. 

In this connection I may remark that, during the sixth cen- 
tury, Cosmos, a Greek Christian merchant, wrote a book enti- 
tled "Christian Topography," the chief intent of which was to 
confute the heretical opinion of the earth's being a globe, to- 
gether with the pagan assertion that there was a temperate zone 
on the southern side of the torrid zone . He informed his read- 
ers that, according to the true orthodox system of cosmography, 
the earth was a quadrangular plane, extending four hundred 
days' journey from east to west, and exactly half as much from 
north to south, enclosed by lofty mountains, upon which the 
canopy or vault of the firmament rested ; that a huge mountain 
on the north side of the earth, by intercepting the light of the 
sun, produced the vicissitudes of day and night ; and that the 
plane of the earth had a declivity from north to south, by rea- 
son of which the Euphrates, the Tigris, and other rivers run- 
ning southward are rapid in their course, whereas the Nile, 
having to run up hill, has necessarily a very slow current. 



WHAT IS SPIEITUALISM? 9 

Monstrously absurd as is this statement, it has, nevertheless, 
been paralleled in the present generation on the other side of 
the Atlantic* In the Museum of the French Academy at 
Paris are to be found fifteen hundred hooks and pamphlets in 
different languages, which were printed during the year 1875 in 
Europe, with the design of proving hy the Mosaic looks that the 
earth is flat! 

William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood 
in the human system, likewise with Galileo had to buffet the 
storms of bigotry and oppression. Detraction and persecution 
followed him, and in consequence of his enunciation of this great 
truth he was reduced to the most abject poverty and misery. 

Des Cartes, a distinguished contemporary of the two scien- 
tists named, we learn deduced from the discovery of the former 
the fact that the entire material universe is governed by me- 
chanical laws ; and, from the discovery of the latter, that the 
same laws preside over the operations of the human body. 
His mighty genius grappled with the revelations evolved from 
both the microcosm of man and the vast macrocosm surrounding 
us, at one and the same time ; and from his study of these he 
sought to resolve all the phenomena of Nature into matter and 
motion, or forces operating according to law. 

This theory is well enough as far as it goes ; but a more spir- 
itual and legitimate conception as to causes, it seems to me, 
most certainly warrants the inference that all the phenomena 
in so majestic a universe as the one we inhabit, including the 
revealments of the human composition, cannot be considered as 
referable to matter and motion alone. Be this as it may, 
however, the investigation of the great truths of Nature, prose- 
cuted during the century named and since, as I have said, has 
given an unprecedented activity to thought. And the human 
mind, growing and expanding upon what it has fed, in connec- 
tion with increased spiritualistic perceptions, begins to realize, 
partially at least, the existence of a power in the universe not 

* Prof. Gunning. 



10 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

fully recognized in the formula of material science, — a spiritual 
power, of which motion is but the untiring agent, and matter 
but the visible channel of external manifestation, — an Infinite 
Power which, through matter and motion, is forever adding to all 
that has been hy perpetually transforming all that is, — an inex- 
plicable power which we call God, and know no more, from 
whom have emanated all infinite spiritual existences. At the 
same time the spiritual philosophy, the most sadly misunderstood 
and grossly misrepresented theme of the age, — the tlieme Df 
which I have the honor to be an advocate this evening, — is 
embracing all the physical sciences, and indeed every other 
groove of advanced thought, within the scope of its mighty reach, 
and, through a long line of hitherto unappreciated phenomena 
and occult forces, is leading the thoughtful and aspiring soul 
upward and onward toward a loftier recognition of this Primal 
Cause of all causes, — " the finger which toucheth the stars." 

Des Cartes was grandly intellectual, philosophical, and scien- 
tific, — a brilliant luminary along the pathway of material prog- 
ress ; but his theory as to the sources of human thought, as 
well as to the general phenomena of the universe, adverted to, 
was radically wrong, as the facts of Spiritualism are daily prov- 
ing. For instance, as you doubtless know, he lodged the soul 
of man in the pineal gland, described as a heart-like substance 
about the size of a small bean, situated immediately over the 
corpora quadrigemina, near the center of the brain. The soul 
existed here, he alleged, as a sort of central office, which, by 
the intermediation of the animal spirits, became aware of what 
was going on in the body, and influenced the operations of the 
same. Scientists of the present day, it is true, do not generally 
ascribe so important a function to the little pineal gland ; but, 
in an indefinite sort of way, certainly adopt the theory of Des 
Cartes when they assert that the hrain of man constitutes the 
mind or soul. 

The ancient Jews, I may remark, in passing, likewise held 
the existence of a nucleus of immortality, differing from that of 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 11 

Des Cartes in that it was more grossly material. They con- 
tended that there was an immortal bone in the human body 
(called by them ossiculum luz), and that this bone is the germ 
of the resurrection body. This bone, they declared, one might 
attempt to burn, boil, bake, pound, or bruise, by putting it on 
the anvil and submitting it to the strokes of the sledge hammer, 
but all in vain. No effect could be produced upon it. It was 
indestructible, incorruptible, immortal. 

And it must be admitted that the theological dogma of a 
hodily resurrection, borrowed doubtless, in part at least, from 
the idea of the ancient Jews, has done but little, if anything 
at all, to overthrow the materialistic conception of Des Cartes, 
or the materialistic tendency of the present day, touching the 
nature and character of the thinking principle in man. Some- 
thing more, I apprehend, is needed in Christendom than has 
hitherto been offered to satisfy the utilitarian and skeptical 
mind of the age with regard to the future destiny of the race. 
For the alleged evidence of past centuries has certainly failed 
in convincing the aspiring soul of the present as to the per- 
petuity of individual consciousness beyond the grave. Said 
a distinguished clergyman,* in a discourse delivered some time 
since : — " Outside of the Church is atheism, inside of it there is 
doubt." This admission must have been founded upon the most 
painful conviction of its truth, and that it is true the thoughtful 
observer is fully convinced. Spiritualism, I feel satisfied in my 
own mind, more than any system within the compass of human 
investigation, can best supply the important desideratum referred 
to. This glorious religio-philosophical superstructure is founded 
Ki^on facts relating to the continuance of life beyond the grave, 
and its assumptions are capable of being demonstrated by actual 
experiment, — through mediumistic agency, — through the agency 
of just such beautiful and powerful mediums as exist so numer- 
ously in your city ; t and who, alas, I learn, with the utmost 
astonishment, are now about being taxed by your civil authori- 
* Kev. Prof. Parks. f San Francisco. 



12 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

ties ! And for what are these sensitives to be taxed, when the 
question is properly analyzed ? For nothing more or less than 
being organizationally fitted for the presentation of natural 
phenomena which constitute the basic foundation of a religion 
the most glorious and soul-satisfying the world has ever known, 
— a religion that is teaching its faithful devotees that for them 
there is kindred and commune with every thing exalted and 
holy throughout the wide-spread universe of matter and of 
mind, — that for them nature unfolds her hoarded poetry and 
her hidden spells, — that for their steps are the gorgeous 
mountains, and for their ears the mysterious murmur of the still 
woods, — that for them there is sweet music in the rolling 
revelry of the white-capped waves that kiss your shore, and in 
the siojhinor of the summer and the autumn leaf, — that for them 
there is rapture in the matin song and the evening carol of the 
happy birds as they join in the oratorio of nature's grand 
cathedral which is as 

" Boundless as our wonder ; 
Whose quenchless lamps ttie sun and moon supply, — 
Its choir the winds and waves ; its organ thunder ; 
Its dome the sky. " 

Or, in other words, a natural religion, with the Infinite Father 
as its high priest, the angels and the archangels as its ministers, 
and the entire human family as its membership and its benefi- 
ciaries. And which is further teaching that every human soul 
proportioned to individual effort and desire, even while a deni- 
zen of earth, may drink and become saturated with the mys- 
terious beneficence of the all-pervading spirit of the universe, 
through the instrumentality of communion with his ministering 
spirits, — our own beloved and gone before. And is it for the 
presentation of phenomena through which we gather such sub- 
lime teachings as these that San Francisco mediums are to be 
taxed ? Heaven forefend, and the cultured freedom of the 
nineteenth century forbid. 

Moreover, it is becoming clearly apparent to the thoughtful 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 13 

investigator -that this heavea-born system is to the New Testa- 
ment the text-book of the popular religion of the day what the 
New Testament was to the Old in the age in which it was first 
presented, — an extension of its views^ with a new and stronger 
light thrown upon its obscurities. The doctrine of immortal life 
receives from Spiritualism a practical illustration, — much that 
was speculation becomes matter of fact, and faith is confirmed 
by knowledge. In this age of free and bold thought, therefore, 
when the progress of physical science is brought into daily 
conflict with creeds, and skepticism seems to delight in the 
demolition of platforms, Spiritualism, as I understand it, comes 
as a savior to true religion, reclaiming the atheist from his 
cheerless materialism, and bringing back the deist to the con- 
sciousness of his own divinity and immortality. Contrary to 
generally received ideas in this connection, the phenomena of 
Spiritualism are all the result of the harmonious action of 
natural law. It derives no powers from beyond the domain 
of nature. It acknowledges indeed no swjoer-naturalism. But 
embracing the whole range of being, from the creative cause to 
the creature, in one universal system of interdependent action, 
— clustering all human affection about the great center of 
divine love, — it resolves all rational being into soul, and clothes 
soul in those substantial angelic or spiritual forms which the 
Supreme Intelligence is perpetually evolving from dissolving 
matter. Thus soul, or the thinking principle, is being continu- 
ously clothed in matter in its most refined, sublimated, beautiful, 
and durable form ; and all matter, in its ceaseless mutations 
through the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal kingdoms, is 
aspiring to a permanent union with the intellectual, the moral, 
and the spiritual. And in this union, as we are assured, it finds 
the accomplishment of the divine purpose, and rejoices in the 
bloom and radiance of immortal life. 

It requires, then, as has been well asserted, no prophetic 
endowment to claim for Spiritualism universal acceptance in the 
not very distant future of our earth, — notwithstanding the 



14 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

tempestuous billows of thought that now retard its progress, 
— that system which is founded upon fact and is capable of 
demonstrative proof which offers all that the heart craves, the 
fancy delights in, and the judgment approves, must make its 
way in the world. Its principle of action is love, — its aim 
a practical recognition of the fatherhood of God, the motherhood 
of nature, and the brotherhood of man. It has no arbitrary 
creed ; but its tenets, at all times held subject to higher convic- 
tions, may be briefly summed up as follows : — 

Firstly. The spirit or soul is the real man, the material body 
being only an external covering adapted to the uses of an 
earthly existence, which uses having been fulfilled, the "muddy 
vesture of decay," through the operations of organic law, is 
thrown aside ; but the man himself lives on, unchecked in his 
career of progressive development by the decay and dissolution 
of the material body, destined to higher uses and more glorious 
surroundings. 

Secondly. The spirit world is composed of substance, forms, 
and objects as tangible to the senses and as adapted to the uses 
of the spiritual man as are the substances, forms, and objects of 
the material world to the senses and uses of the external body. 

Thirdly. The spiritual world surrounds and interpenetrates 
the material universe, and is as closely united thereto as is the 
soul to the body. 

Fourthly. Man's relations to the spirit world are compre- 
hended in an immediate and continuous intercourse. 

Fifthly. Eternal progress beyond the grave, proportioned to 
individual effort and desire. 

The fundamental idea of Spiritualism is God, the Infinite Soul 
of the universe, who is as imminent in spirit as in space. 

The fundamental thought of Spiritualism, with the attendant 
facts, is a present conscious connection with angel life. 

The fundamental purpose of Spiritualism is to educate, elevate, 
and spiritualize humanity. 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 15 

Considered therefore as a religion, as a science, and as a phi- 
losophy, Spiritualism underlies and overtops all human interests. 

At this point allow me to offer a few additional thoughts 
with reference generally to some of the propositions I have 
presented as fundamental, — reserving more extended logical 
effort for subsequent lectures. For instance, I have said in 
effect that the spirit world, considered as distinct from the 
material universe, is formed of spiritual substance, together 
with all things in it, — adapted to the uses and pleasures of 
human spirits, — or human beings dispossessed of their material 
bodies. It is no legitimate argument against this assertion to 
say, as it is frequently said, that there can be no such thing as 
spiritual substance, simply because the finite mind can form no 
definite idea of what spiritual substance is in itself. It is 
equally impossible for you to form a definite idea of what 
material substance is in itself. " All that you can know defi- 
nitely of any substance [says a distinguished author*], material 
or spiritual, is the necessary conditions of existence, and the 
qualities that inhere in it, as their subject ; and you can learn 
th^se qualities only from the relation of their subjects to 
yourself." Hence the same objection would apply as to the 
existence of the material substance comprehended in the visible 
universe around us. And, indeed, one philosopher, as you may 
be aware, has declared that the material objects perceptible 
around us have no actual being, but that they exist only in the 
mind of the observer. But the declaration of Bishop Berkeley, 
and the assumption as to the non-existence of spiritual sub- 
stance, are alike unwarrantable. 

Although the abstract fact of a spiritual existence has been 
taught for more than eighteen centuries in Christendom, yet but 
little if any knowledge has obtained as to the nature and office 
of the individual spirit, or of its dwelling place in the realm of 
the Infinite. It has been assumed in some schools of thought 
that the only way to arrive at a true idea of spirit is to regard 

* Rev. Chauncey Giles. 



16 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

it as the opposite of matter in every respect. " Matter has 
form, therefore spirit has none," has been the general conclu- 
sion. This is practically the method of reasoning in Christen- 
dom, and as the legitimate result of such method all possible 
modes of existence appreciable by the human mind are denied 
to spirit. Ecclesiasticism, while theoretically affirming the 
existence of spirits, and of a spirit world, in its rejection of the 
facts of Spiritualism, virtually denies that any thing of advan- 
tage to mankind may be known in regard to either. The 
materialist naturally pushes this terrible logic one step further, 
and denies the existence of spirit altogether, which is certainly 
the legitimate result of such mode of reasoning. The truth is, 
however, as the facts of Spiritualism are clearly demonstrating, 
" spirit is the correlative, not the negation of matter." And, 
through the instrumentality of the facts and the philosophy of 
the spiritual school (notwithstanding all the absurdities which, 
through ignorance or design, have been attached to it), the age 
will be compelled to recognize eventually the actual existence 
of spirit substance, and that this substance may have form and 
feature, or else spiritual existence and a spiritual world must 
be denied altogether. No other conclusion is possible, it seems 
to me, through any correct method of reasoning ; and it is a 
little remarkable that the Church does not perceive the natural 
and legitimate result of its denial of the spiritual facts of the 
age. 

Again, by way of further illustration — reasoning by analogy 
at least — as to the existence of a substantial spirit world sur- 
rounding and interpenetrating the material universe, you are 
aware, doubtless, that a current of electricity passed on a wire 
round a globe, no matter of what composed, — of earth, wood, or 
water, — will give to the globe polarity, — will convert it into a 
magnet, with its negative and positive poles, the positive pole 
being at the right of the current, and the negative at the left. 

In connection with these known facts, science declares that a 
current or ocean of electricity is constantly flowing around the 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 17 

globe which we inhabit, from east to west, and that this current 
puts in motion a transverse current of magnetism which holds 
the needle to its polar bearing. By these assumptions is the 
polarity of the earth accounted for. But by them much more 
important points are conceded, indirectly at least. Thus, sci- 
ence declares the existence of two great oceans of substance, 
constantly flowing around the earth in transverse directions 
without coming in mutual contact, — in which fourteen hundred 
millions of human beings are living, moving, and acting, wholly 
unconscious of such presence. Now, is not this a virtual admis- 
sion that just such an order of things as I have claimed may 
properly exist, namely, the presence of a substantial spiritual 
world surrounding and interpenetrating the material globe on 
which we dwell, and yet remain intangible wholly to the mate- 
rial senses? The presence of so vast a division of imperceptible 
substance as constitutes these two oceans of electricity and 
magnetism is wonderful in the extreme ; but much of that 
wonder subsides when we reflect upon the relation which we 
bear likewise to the maierial atmosphere of our world. We 
know but little through our senses of the power which the 
atmosphere of the earth exerts upon the human body ; but 
science tells us that every individual of ordinary size bears 
constantly no less a weight than thirteen or fourteen tons of 
atmospheric pressure, or about fifteen pounds to the square inch 
of the surface of the body. No greater absurdity could be pre- 
sented to the illiterate, and yet the general mind has accepted 
as a truth this declaration of science. 

Again, if an ordinary iron ring of three or four inches in 
diameter, made of about three-quarter inch iron, be cut in two, 
so as to make two half circles, the cut surfaces, if put together, 
will show no signs of adhesion whatever. But pass a current 
of electricity around any part of the ring, and their surfaces 
will then adhere together so forcibly as to well nigh defy your 
ability to pull them asander. Science tells you that this is 
attributable to the fact that the current of electricity passed 



18 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

around the iron puts in action a current of magnetism in tlie 
ring which, by its inexplicable operations, unites the two seg- 
ments with such wonderful adhesive force. Now, if there be a 
similar force exerted upon the world by the ocean of magnetism 
surrounding it equal in comparison to the force exerted upon 
the ring, then is the atmospheric pressure on the world and its 
inhabitants, great as it is, of but pigmy importance compared 
with its gigantic magnetic power. 

That two great substantial currents, as electricity and mag- 
netism, can pass transversely around our world without coming 
in mutual contact, and without our consciousness of their pres- 
ence, is an idea certainly as paradoxical as is that of matter and 
spirit substance performing the same thing. Besides, there is 
likewise no question on the part of the scientific mind as to the 
atmospheric pressure upon our bodies referred to, although we 
ourselves are incapable of realizing the fact. Why, then, should 
the declaration of the spiritual school as to the existence of a 
vast spiritual surrounding — 

"Holding the spirit in its fixed embrace, 
All unknown though in its breath we live," — 

still be the subject of such wide-spread disbelief, and that, too, 
when there is undoubtedly as much proof in favor of the one 
declaration as the other ? Nevertheless, I can but believe, as 
time advances — however much this great fact in the present 
hour may 

" Seem to the mind upon its sensuous plane 
The poet's fancy aad enthusiast's dream," — 

that mankind will yet be induced to recognize the important 
truths conveyed by modern inspiration, that 

"Matter is all one substance everywhere, 
And God, through matter, by unvarying laws, 
Unfolds for every world a human race. 
And builds its beautiful immortal seats. 
Mid springing flowers and groves of fruited bloom, 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 19 

In rich abundance for all living things. 

Each Tvorld has its own race that, like itself, 

Shines in the galaxy, floats in the stream 

Of universal harmony, and glows 

All multitudinous in spheral air, 

And chants accordant as their planet moves 

Through mild Elysian realms of holy space. 

Round every planet glows a spirit world. 
Most like itself, but fairer. Theris are different 
Concentric circles round each perfect world, 
Of spiritual substance made, and all 
In perfect melody revolve and shine 
In the white splendor of eternity. 

Round every solar system glows a sphere 

Encompassing the planets and their sun, — 

Translucent as pure thought, with love's own fire 

Eorever kindling up its lamp of light; 

An orb of such magnificent extent — 

An orb of such intensity of life — 

That all its substance glows incorporate 

With radiant perfections that stream forth 

Eorever from the mind of Deity." 

But I have said, likewise, in effect, that the spirit is the real 
man, — that we are actual spirit entities in this sphere of mate- 
rial existence, as it is termed, — bearing about a material shell 
or body, adapted to the uses and pleasures of this life ; and that 
as spirit entities we live hereafter, when this material shell shall 
have been laid aside through the process called death. Permit 
me to offer a few remarks on this point, also, — introductory 
to future argument. 

The theory of material metajDhysicians, that the mind of man 
is but a function of the animal brain, and the dogma of the 
theologian as to a material resurrection, to which advertency 
has been had, are both at variance with the teachings of the 
spiritual school on this subject. These two ideas have been 
the fruitful source of incalculable misery to the human family, 



20 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

casting a pall of mental darkness, as it were, over the strug- 
gling hopes and innate aspirations of the soul. To lift this pall 
from the human mind, causing the waters of life to dance in the 
sunshine of a happier present, and a more glorious future, is in 
part the mission of Spiritualism. Its facts and its philosophy 
are diametrically opposed to the cheerless assumptions of the 
materialist on the one hand, and the equally cheerless tenets 
of dogmatic theology on the other. Spiritualism declares we 
are as really spirits today as we shall ever be; and that wo 
are as much in the spirit world today as we shall ever be, — 
although not in the world of spirits. St. Paul declares in the 
15th chapter 1 Corinthians : " There is a natural body, and 
there is a spiritual body," — not that there will he at some 
future day. For this and other noble utterances St. Paul has 
been canonized. Spiritualism proves the declaration of St. Paul 
to be true^ and yet spiritual mediums are ostracized, taxed, and 
possibly imprisoned in this world, and are to be damned in the 
next, it is declared, for accepting the testimony of their own 
senses in behalf of the truth of Paul's declaration to the 
Corinthians. And still we are told that we live in a land of 
religious freedom, and in the light of Christian civilization. 
Again, in chapter 32, v. 8, of that wonderful epic, the book of 
Job, Elihu, one of the advisers of the patriarch, makes the 
following declaration : " There is a spirit in man," — which is, 
of course, in the light of scientific facts, tantamount to saying 
man is a spirit, and the facts of Spiritualism, as I have said, 
prove this declaration to be unmistakably true. 

Of the many phases of spiritual phenomena, I shall advert to 
but one on the present occasion to establish the fact of man's 
spiritual entity in this life, — namely, that of independent clair- 
voyance, — which, through the instrumentality of mesmerism, 
as a stepping stone, was one of the earliest phases of Spiritual- 
ism, as recognized today. These earlier and rudimentary pre- 
sentations, some of you are old enough to remember, met with 
the same spirit of virulence as now characterizes the opposition 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 21 

to Spiritualism 'per se, and such is the inconsistency of the 
human mind, when swayed by prejudice, that many who once 
denounced mesmerism and clairvoyance as the wicked coinage 
of weak brains are now disposed to acknowledge their existence 
in nature, and to attribute to them alone all the other phenom- 
ena so widely diffused throughout the broad field of spiritualistic 
manifestations. Suppose we accept of this assumption for the 
present occasion, and let us see what clairvoyance will furnish 
in regard to the point at issue, namely, the existence of man as 
a sjjirit entity in this life. And here permit me to introduce a 
familiar simile by way of illustration. Suppose some one of 
you, in wandering over a recent battle-field, should find a bone, 
and upon your submitting it to one of the skillful surgeons of 
your city, he should tell you that it was the bone of a human 
arm, what would be your immediate and unavoidable conclusion ? 
Would it not be that this bone at some time or other must have 
composed the appropriate portion of an arm ; and that the arm 
at some time in its history must have been attached to a human 
body ? Most assuredly such conclusions would be inevitable. 
And why ? Because everyone intuitively knows that Nature 
invariably adapts her several parts in harmony with the general 
whole. 

Now let us return to the clairvoyant. While an individual 
is in this state, you are aware that any number of bandages 
may be placed over the eyes, entirely obstructing all external 
vision, and yet in thousands of instances the clairvoyant has 
given unmistakable evidences of being able to see, — the sight 
being so keen as to be able to distinguish the internal condition 
of the physical organs as well as objects at remote distances. In 
order that we may see in a normal or natural state, you know, 
three things are necessary, — the object to be seen, the eye upon 
which the object is reflected, and the light, which is the medium 
of reflection. In the case of the clairvoyant all three of these 
are obscured, shut out from use ; and yet we know the clair- 
voyant sees. How can this be ? Modern Spiritualism ascends 



22 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

the rostrum of polemic debate and defies the entire army of her 
opponents to determine how the clairvoyant sees, except upon 
her own hypothesis. Thus experience, observation, and sci- 
ence have unitedly taught us that the Divine architect in nature 
has constructed and designed the eye, and the eye only, as the 
organ of sight. The external eye of the clairvoyant, as we 
have said, is entirely closed. And yet we know that he or she 
sees. It can only be with a spiritual eye, therefore, that sight 
is obtained. Now, then, if it be with a spiritual eye that the 
clairvoyant sees, there must be corresponding spiritual organs, 
and if the natural complement of spiritual organs exist, there 
must be a spiritual body to contain them ; and spiritual con- 
sciousness to render them available. I say these things must 
he, because, as in the case of the bone of the arm, we instinct- 
ively know that Nature invariably adapts her several parts in 
harmony with the general whole. This conclusion is unavoidable. 
To deny it is to ignore that intuitive confidence in the uniformity 
of nature which is the true basis of all sound philosophy. 

Again, I have said that the principle of action underlying the 
philosophy of Spiritualism is love ; and that all its phenomena 
are in accordance with the harmonious action of natural law. 
A few general reflections in this connection likewise, if you 
please. 

Upon what generally impelling principle have you assembled 
together this evening ? It is true, some may be here through 
curiosity alone ; but the major portion have been undoubtedly 
drawn hither upon some general principle of action, — animated 
by some common motive, — some general impulse both of thought 
and feeling, — some universal law of being, which I may desig- 
nate as the natural law of communion, through affinity of ideas, — 
an affinity for the subject matter under discussion, or a com- 
mon affinity of sentiment, one with the other. Look abroad 
over the wide-spread field of human activities,— what is it that 
is continually inducing, and likewise determining, the character 
of the different convocations of men and women throughout 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 23 

society, whether religious, political, or social ? Or even lower 
down in the scale of human experience, — what general principle 
is operative in the haunts of licentiousness, or in the halls of 
inebriety, where men, and, alas, too often, likewise, women, are 
in the practice of dwarfing the image of immortality by swal- 
lowing liquid damnation ? It is the same general law of com- 
munion or affinity in operation, whether the body or mind be 
high or low in the scale of development, — the law of commun- 
ion being the same in kind, — differing only in the sphere of 
its manifestation, proportioned to the moral and intellectual con- 
dition of the party operated upon. It is this law of affinity or 
communion that renders man gregarious in his tendencies 
rather than misanthropical, and it constitutes the basis upon 
which communities, states, and empires have been founded, — 
such associations remaining permanent or otherwise, propor- 
tioned to the modification or intensity of the idiosyncrasies of 
individual character. Being thus general and universal in its 
operations, the law of communion can but be denominated a law 
of nature, — a law of man's being, — and, as such, unalterable 
and eternal, — consequently operative in whatever sphere man 
may become a denizen hereafter. If man be immortal, and the 
laws of God immutable, then it follows as a legitimate sequence 
that our beloved and departed, who have thrown aside the muddy 
mask of time, are still the creatures of the same law ; and it must 
therefore be true, as the spirits tell us, that the law of commun- 
ion through affinity and attraction, which is partially operative 
here, is more fully operative in determining individual and asso- 
ciative conditions in the worlds to come. Indeed, in the higher 
life, we are told, the children of earth gravitate together naturally^ 
under this law, proportioned to moral, intellectual, and emotional' 
development ; since in those brighter realms are to be found 
neither the degrees of arbitrary organizations, the convention- 
alities of social despotism, or the influences of the honey-comb 
of popularity, to check the onward progress of the soul. This 
law of communion, then, existing as the means of intercourse 



24 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

between spirits in the form, and of spirits out of the form like- 
wise, — differing only in degree, — is not the corollary legiti- 
mate — reasoning by analogy — that the same law must be opera- 
tive between the two conditions, — although broad graveyards 
seemingly lie between ; — and that communion between the 
minds of earth and the disinthralled minds of interior life is 
entirely practicable, and strictly in accordance with the harmo- 
nious action of the universal laws of being? This must be so, or 
else you will have to admit the existence of an hiatus in the 
economy of nature with regard to man, who stands at the 
apex of creation, that is to be found no where else in the broad 
universe of infinite love and infinite wisdom. 

Again, what is the chief source of happiness in the earth life ? 
From whence does the human soul derive its truest joys, its 
greatest bliss in time? The young man mounts ambition's 
loftiest V7ave, its undulating surface buoys him on toward earthly 
glory ; but when he has reached the pinnacle where " fame's 
proud temple shines afar,"- — is he happy? Never, exclusively 
from this source. The miser, discarding all nobler aims, may 
garner his heaps of gold ; but, instead of happiness, he finds he 
has enshrouded his soul with the darkness of desolation. The 
ambitious and dishonest politician, "cleaving the air with horrid 
speech," may attain the end for which he has striven ; and all, 
throughout the walks of life, the schemes of men and women 
may terminate in temporal success ; but, if the one great soul- 
need be unsupplied, all earthly hopes and earthly desires fall 
short of happiness. In the field of the affections, however, 
exists the supply of this great want. In the cultivation of 
reciprocal love and confidence, — in the endearments of home, — 
in the nurturing of ties of consanguinity ; and in the preserva- 
tion of those endearing sympathieis that link two souls as " with 
a single thought," and bind two hearts indissolubly as one, — 
is to be found the richest boon that earth can give. Indeed, 
the declaration is of universal application, — that, upon the cul- 
tivation and development of the emotional in his nature, must 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 25 

man rely for his chief source of happiness, of contentment, and 
peace. This is most emphatically true of man in the earth life ; 
and if true of him here, it must necessarily be eminently true 
of him, wherever the disenthralled spirit shall find a home, 
when materiality has been left behind ; for all that makes him 
a man here, our dear departed ones tell us, becomes intensified 
through his freedom from earthly surrounding, and goes with 
liim to the spheres ; hence, whatever gave to the spirit its truest 
and highest joy here must of necessity be the source of felicity 
forever, — since the laws of man's being, as I have said, are as 
immutable and as enduring as are the years of the everlasting. 
God gives us our loves, — mothers and fathers, sisters and 
brothers, husbands and wives and children, together with all the 
other ties of love that bind the race together with golden chords 
of truest sympathy. And yet death (so called) has visited 
every homestead, — and, oh, how many of these golden chords 
lie broken through the influence of past teachings with regard 
to this bereavement. And, too, how we have shuddered in other 
years as we have been told that death stands continually, like 
a grim monster, upon the threshold of eternity ready to enfold 
in his cold and bony embrace all of God's children ? And how 
our hearts have ached after our beloved have gone from us, — 
when we have been cruelly assured that they were taken, some- 
times even in anger, by a jealous God, to the land of silence, — 
far out in the grim darkness of the dim, inexplicable unknown ? 
And as we have garnered the fondest reminiscences of these 
cherished ones within the chambers of the soul, with the arms of 
our love naturally reaching out after our treasures, how terrible 
were the funeral tones of those to whom we looked for comfort 
as they reiterated the dreadful declaration that our friends had 
gone to that " undiscovered country, from whose bourne no 
traveler returns," and that their voices of love could no more 
cheer us amid the sorrows of time ? But, heaven be praised, 
the facts of Spiritualism are demonstrating the utter falsity of 
all these soul-harrowing tenets, and are teaching that, in the 



26 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

economy of nature, human hearts have not been so loosely 
linked together that they can be thus torturingly torn asunder. 
Through the inculcations of this glorious philosophy, we are 
learning a higher and holier appreciation of the infinite love 
and wisdom ruling in the realm of destiny, as well as loftier 
conceptions in regard to the true character and future life-line 
of the human soul. We know now, thank God, through the 
ministry of His star-eyed angels, that an infinite power in the 
universe has not given us a capacity for love, and objects upon 
which to bestow our love, and then, in the cruel spirit of irony, 
torn them from our arms, giving us no redress for broken hopes 
and aching hearts. We know now that our beloved, who have 
passed through the change called death, have not gone to a 
land of silence, but that in strict accordance with law, and with 
fondest affection, they still linger around our hearth-stones, aim- 
ing to comfort, seeking to bless. We know now, from actual 
demonstration, that the old arm-chair by the fire-side has not 
been entirely vacated ; that the nursing-chair by the family 
stand may still contain its beloved occupant; and that even 
the baby-chair at the table, and the cradle by your side, are not 
altogether tenantless. We know now that death is not the sad 
messenger of an angry God, shutting our friends from our sight 
in time, and perhaps forever ; but that the phenomenon termed 
death is rather the pale angel of organic law, bringing compen- 
sation for the varied degrees of martyrdom incidental to time ; 
and that, as he hovers about the homesteads of earth, he is seek- 
ing to gather the violets therefrom, that they may be trans- 
planted amid the flowery planes of a brighter and a happier, 
clime. We know now, indeed, that there are no dead in all the 
garden of our God, but that 

* ' Still the angels bridge death's river, 
With glad tidings as of yore ; 
Whilst their song of triumph swelling 
Echoes back from shore to shore 
' ]Ve shall live forever more.' " ; 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 27 

In conclusion, my brother and sister Spiritualists, permit me 
to enjoin upon you a strict adherence to the principles, and a 
firm maintenance of the facts, of our most holy faith, — if faith 
it may be called. Let us be firmly banded together in the bonds 
of brotherly love, with an abiding confidence in the ministry of 
our beloved and departed ; and rest assured that victory shall 
eventually perch upon our banner, whilst our hearts shall expand 
with unfading joy under the influences of our glorious religion. 



LECTURE IT. 

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 

The harmonization of the Truths of Science, and the Facts of Spiritualism, with 
the declarations of Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, 1st Epistle, xv. ch., 40th and 
44th vs. : ''There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial ; but the glory 
of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another ; " and " There 
is a natiiral body, and there is a spiritual body." 

One of the most advanced seers of the present century has 
truthfully said that there is no division between science, phi- 
losophy, metaphysics, and religion ; for the first is the rudiment 
and basis of the second ; the second illustrates the first, and 
typifies the third ; the third unites with the second, and flows 
spontaneously into the fourth ; the fourth, true religion, per- 
vades and comprehends them all, and flows as spontaneously to 
still higher degrees of knowledge and perfection. 

As a science, as a philosophy, and as a religion, Spiritualism, 
as I understand it, holds position in the realm of thought. And 
as such it claims to have demonstrated among other great facts 
the existence during man's sojour i upon earth of a spiritual 
body, — not merely an undefined, formless essence, born of the 
imagination or of hope, but an individualized reality of spirit- 
ual substance, formed and objective to the spiritual senses even 
in time, limited of course to peculiar mediumistic development. 
And my own investigations of this theme, continuing for more 
than a quarter of a century, have satisfied me of the justness 
of this claim of the spiritual school and of the truthfulness of a 
recent declaration of the highly gifted and spiritually jninded 

(28) 



THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 29 

Epes Sargent that " there is nothing in chemistry, mechanics, 
or physics generally that can authoritatively stamp as unsci- 
entific the hypothesis of a supersensual organism, developed 
pari passu with the physical, and acting between it and the 
life constantly inflowing from the central source of all things. 
Neither observation or science has any evidence to offer against 
this idea." Hence, the reconciliation of this claim of Spiritual- 
ism, together with the declarations of St. Paul just repeated, 
with the acknowledged truths of science is the purpose of my 
present discourse. And permit me, my friends, to invite your 
courteous attention to the entire line of my remarks, since the 
nature of the argument is such that a clear appreciation of the 
premises is necessary to a full recognition of the conclusions at 
which I aim. 

It is admittedly a self-evident proposition that all the objects 
by which you are surrounded in the domain of inanimate nature, 
and all the various changes observable therein, are attributable 
to the two principles, matter and force. By matter, of course, 
is understood the substratum of that which affects the senses ; 
and by force is understood the power which produces the various 
changes that you observe in the former. It is equally self- 
evident, it is assumed, that you cannot imagine a force without 
at the same time conceivinaj of some substance ajjainst which it 
is to be exerted. Hence the two ideas of matter and force are 
co-existent in the mind; and learned men tell us that upon 
a clear and definite comprehension of them depends that pre- 
cise relation of the phenomena denominated science. True it is 
that the essence of matter and force is unknown to science, but 
scientific men, by studying the laws by which they are governed, 
have adopted a constitution of matter which has enabled them 
to generalize many important facts, among the most important 
of which, to my mind, is what is known as the atomic theory. 

According to this theory, in its widest conception, the whole 
of the material universe accessible to us by means of the tele- 
scope is occupied by atoms inconceivably minute, hard, and un- 



30 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

changeable, which are separated from each other by the laws 
of attraction and repulsion. These atoms, therefore, constitute 
the matter of the material universe, according to finite apprehen- 
sion ; and their attractions and repulsions constitute the forces 
by which they are actuated, and to which is referable all the 
power and energy that we observe in the changes to which 
matter is subjected. 

Science tells us further that these atoms forming thus a ple- 
num throughout all space constitute what is termed the ethereal 
medium, which we know to be unappreciable by the material 
senses, and in which, at wide distances from each other, are 
large isolated bodies of grosser matter, such as the earth upon 
which we reside, together with all the solar and astral worlds 
by which we are surrounded, and of which ours is but a minute 
representative ; and that these, larger bodies of matter are com- 
posed of atoms of another order, or groups of atoms, with 
spaces between them, wide in comparison to the size of the 
atoms,— these spaces between being pervaded by the minuter 
atoms of the ethereal medium. According to this theory, these 
isolated bodies of grosser matter act upon each other by means 
of the force of gravitation, and also by tremors and vibrations 
in the ethereal medium, radiating in every direction from each 
body as a center. 

Thus scientists ascribe to the ethereal medium the same con- 
stitution as that possessed by grosser matter, that is, that it 
consists of inert atoms at great distances from each other, pro- 
portioned to their size, each kept in position by attracting and 
repelling forces. And, further, that through this ethereal me- 
dium the impulses or minute vibrations just adverted to are 
transmitted from planet to planet, and from system to system, 
and that these vibrations or agitations constitute light, heat, and 
other emanations which we claim to receive from the sun. Or, 
in other words, it is declared that the solar emanations are not 
matter but motion communicated from atom to atom, beginning 
at the luminous body, and diffused in widening spherical surfaces, 



THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 31 

enlarging in size and diminishing in intensity to the remotest 
portion of conceivable space. 

Basing their opinions upon these, and other generalities, 
which need no mention at the present time, accepted authori- 
tarians have announced within the last quarter of a century, as 
the general conclusion of science, that all the different ener- 
gies in the universe of matter — whether termed chemical 
action, heat, light, electricity, magnetism, muscular action, or 
mechanical power — are referable to the disturbance of the 
equilibrium of the atoms of the ethereal medium spoken of, and 
its subsequent restoration due to their attractions and repul- 
sions ; and that all these forms of energy are, in one sense, con- 
vertible into each other, or, in other words, the force generated 
in the restoration of the equilibrium in one case is sufficient 
to disturb it, though in different form perhaps in another.* 

Extending those generalizations, Prof. S. S. Loomis, of the 
Georgetown College, District of Columbia, some yeara since 
classed the ethereal medium as a constituent element of all pon- 
derable bodies, and as subject to all the laws that have been com- 
monly restricted to gross matter. If this assumption be true, — 
and I find no reason to contradict it, — that the ethereal medium 
enters into every compound as a constituent, it becomes appar- 
ent that what we have hitherto regarded as analyses are such 
only in part, since one essential has been overlooked, and, as 
Prof. Loomis suggests, the whole formulary of chemistry will 
have to be recast. 

Again, Spiritualism declared — at an earlier date, I believe, 
than did material science — that the entire body of matter com- 
prehended in our universe has ever had existence in some form 
or other ; and that it is therefore equally as absurd on the part 
of theology to speak of a God without a universe at any time 

* In illustration of the convertibility of the various forms of force into each other, 
recent experiments with an instrument called the telemachon have demonstrated 
that, by means of electro-magnets, power or motion may be transformed into 
electricity, and the same conducted to any distance, and then again converted into 
power or light 



32 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

within the past as it is ou the part of the atheist of the present 
age to speak of a universe without a God. In harmony with 
this declaration of the spiritual school, Prof. Le Conte, in 1859, 
said in effect that matter, though constantly changing its 
form, is still in and of itself indestructible ; and that the same 
amount of matter has ever had existence in the universe. And 
likewise in regard to force this distinguished scientist has 
asserted that it is incapable of increase or diminution, and hence 
the same amount of force exists in the universe at all times and 
forever. In this connection I may state, as you are awarie, 
doubtless, that the mutual convertibility of the various forms 
of force is termed " correlation of forces," and the invariability 
of the absolute amount of force, amidst the constant changes 
incidental to time, is termed "conservation of force." This 
principle of the correlation and conservation of force is deemed 
by the learned one of the grandest generalizations of science, 
is looked upon as almost axiomatic, and as a legitimate basis 
for rational deduction. 

- Le Conte further enumerates four planes of material exist- 
ence, which are regarded as being raised one above the other. 
The ^rs< and lowest is termed the plane of elementary exist- 
ence ; the second, the plane of chemical compounds, or the min- 
eral kingdom; the third, the plane of vegetable existence; and 
ihQ fourth, the plane of animal existence; and declares that it 
is impossible for any known force in nature to raise matter 
through all these grades at once. But that, on the contrary, 
there is a special form or character of force adapted for 
the elevation of matter from each plane to the plahe above. 
That it is the special function, for instance, of chemical affinity 
to raise matter from plane number one to plane number two ; 
and that all the changes which take place upon plane number 
two, by the mutual reaction of bodies situated on that plane, are 
under the guidance and control of this force. And that thus, 
after matter is raised from the elementary to the mineral con- 
dition, it requires an additional force of another and peculiar 



THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 83 

kind to raise it into the vegetable kingdom ; and, again, another 
accession of force to raise it into the animal kingdom, — a 
greater and still greater expenditure of force being required to 
maintain matter upon each successive plane. Hence, it follows, 
as science declares, that " any amount of matter, returning to 
a lower plane by decomposition, must set free or develop a 
force which may, under favorable circumstances, raise other 
matter from a lower to a higher condition." 

The same distinguished authority declares likewise that, in 
the same manner as matter may be arranged in several distinct 
and graduated kingdoms, so the forces of nature may also be 
divided into distinct groups, — arranged in a similar manner, 
one above another. These are the physical^ the chemicaly and 
the vital forces, — the latter-named, more than the others, tran- 
scending the sagacity of the chemist, and producing groups of 
atoms materially exceeding his present skill. As in the case of 
matter, so also in the case of force, it is impossible to pass 
directly from the lowest to the highest group without passing 
through the intermediate group. 

As I proceed in the line of my argument, let the statement I 
have made be retained in the mind as the declaration of modern 
science, viz.^ that any amount of matter returning from a higher 
to a lower plane, through decomposition, liberates or develops a 
force capable of raising other matter from a lower to a higher 
condition. And it may be considered pertinent also to remark, 
just at this point, that the comprehensive idea of a universally 
operative law of progress, in the realm of matter and of mind, 
has been promulgated by the spiritual school for more than a 
quarter of a century ; and that, iii lieu of the Adamic account 
of creation comprehended in the song of Moses, the spiritual 
philosophy in association with the divine revelations of geology 
has long since declared the formation of the earth to have been 
after the order of sub-position, — first, the non-stratified rock; 
secondly, the non-fossiliferous stratified rock ; and, thirdly, the 
fossiliferous stratified rock ; that man was the ultimate in the 



34 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

design of earthly formations ; and that the earth and all succeed^ 
ing existences upon it were wrought into being because neces- 
sary to that end ; and hence that each general change from the 
original condition of our planet must have been for the better, 
and in the direction of the ultimate design. 
' This generalization as to the teachings of Spiritualism in this 
direction necessarily comprehends the continuous progress of 
the primates, the sixty-five recognized elements,^ be they more 
OF less, which science declares constitute the primary basis of 
all matter. Spiritualism, more emphatically than any other 
school of thought thus far, teaches that upon the development 
of these primates and their constructive associations depends 
the relative degree of progress which attaches to all the different 
forms which serve to make up the various kingdoms which 
constitute the splendid macrocosm of the material universe. In 
other words, that, through the agency of life, death, decay, and 
decomposition, these primaries have been continuously pro- 
gressing, individually and collectively, from lower to higher 
forms throughout unappreciable ages, — each successive mani- 
festation of growth, decay, and death projecting them forward 
in the scale of existence, into higher capabilities of organic life ; 
or, as science asserts, setting free a force capable of raising the 
constituent properties from a lower to a higher plane* And, 
too, as plane succeeds plane in the scale of material confor- 
mation, we find not only an increased degree of organic devel- 
opment, but likewise an increased number of the primaries 
aggregated together, as one of the primal causes of this ad- 
vanced growth. After the elevation of matter, through the 
liberation of the successive forms of force adverted to, above 
the plane of mineral compounds,^ — upon which plane most of 
the elements exist in a relatively undeveloped state, — analysis 
shows that consecutive conditions of growth and decay have pro- 

*rrom 1774 to 1874 the number of elements had increased to sixty-three, recog- 
nized as such; and within the last five years nine or ten more, it is claimed, have 
been discovered. Sixty-five at the present time (1879), I believe, are indisputably 
recognized. 



THE SPIRITUAI/ BODY. 35 

gressed some fourteen, more or less, of the original number, to 
a more elevated plane, which, in their aggregation constitute 
the higher forms of vegetable life. These, in their turn ^ assO' 
ciated with others under the influence of higher forces, and 
impelled by the same great law of organic progress, eventually 
evolve still higher forms of life, as seen in the lower animal 
structures ; and these, by the same law, through successively 
higher forms ultimating in the association of thirty-five, more 
or less, of the original number of the primates, and in a still 
more advanced condition than they are found in the kingdom 
below, which advanced condition is manifested in the ratio 
that the faculty of exercising the senses on the part of the ani- 
mal predominates over the merely passive life of the vegetable. 
Finally, the organism of the human succeeds, containing fifty- 
seven, more or less, of the original number of the primaries, and 
in a still more advanced condition over those of the preceding 
kingdom, as is exhibited in this higher animal structure, through 
which the same intelligent principle that is manifested in the 
growth of the vegetable and in the instinct of the brute, hav- 
ing become individually incarnated in the body of man, as an 
epitome of all below it in the scale of conformation, is thereby 
enabled to bring into exercise the power of apprehending funda- 
mental principles, and of controlling in all the wonderful pro- 
cesses of investigation and deduction characteristic of the mental 
operations of huinanity. Thus it will be seen that in the evo- 
lution df the human species from oiit the lower conditions of 
the universe by which man is surrounded, and upon the apex of 
which he stands unrivaled amid air finite existences, Spiritual- 
ism fully recognizes the wonderful forces of nature operating 
with such beautiful regularity through the immutable laws of 
growth and decay as but the majestic exponents of an overrating 
and Infinite Will, — some grand, almighty architect, wholly 
inexplicable to the human mind,— and of whom man, in his 
spiritual nature, is the highest individualized finite representa- 
tive. Nor can it be correctly supposed — although so alleged 



Sb UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

by the superficial investigator — that this theory of organic 
growth and development, when contrasted with the Mosaic 
account of the origin of man, detracts in the slightest degree 
from either the grandeur and glory of an all-wise Creator, or 
the wondrous beauty and interest which legitimately attaches 
to the transcendent drama of creation. Listen to the philo- 
sophic refrain of modern revelation : — 

** * Let there be Light ! and there was Light,' said He, 
Who spake old time from out eternity. 

* Let there be Light ! ' — and matter's ocean main 
Foretells a future, grand organic chain. 

* Let there be Light ! ' — and primal atoms move 
In elemental bonds of perfect love. 

* Let there be Light ! ' — and worlds succeed to worlds, 
Whilst Force, through Law, great Nature's scroll unfurls. 

* Let there be Light ! ' — and mighty pulse unseen 
Their beatings tell Earth's rocky ribs between. 

* Let there be Light ! ' — as centuries onward move. 
And glaciers grand Deific impulse prove. 

* Let there be Light ! ' — these moving glaciers tell 
Of generous soils, where germs prolific swell. 

* Let there be Light ! ' — and, lo ! the useful seed 
Grand offerings make, foretelling future need. 

* Let there be Light ! ' — and Force has changed its form. 
Whilst into Life both pain and joy are born. 

* Let there be Light ! ' — Sensation is the theme,— 
As seen in brutes, — begot from what has been. 

* Let there be Light I ' — and still new forms arise, 
Which upward look with longings toward the skies. 

* Let there be Light ! and there was Light,' said He, 
And primaries coalesced to form humanity. 

* Let there be Light ! ' — and higher truths unroll 
God's image pure, enstamped upon the soul." 



XaE SPIPvITUAL BODY. 37 

■ But r shall have more to say upon some other occasion in 
regard to the divinity of the race, as inculcated by the spiritual 
school^ in contradistinction to the doctrine of total depravity. 

. Let us return to the immediate theme of my discourse, in 
which I hope to show that the law of progress, applicable in the 
development and sustenance of the material body, is equally 
applicable in the evolvement and formation from kindred ele- 
ments of a substantial spiritual body in time, and likewise in 
the eventual elimination of this spiritual form from its material 
environment, prepared for higher duties in a more spiritual 
realm, corresponding to its more ethereal and vital properties. 
In connection with the declaration of science (of which Ii 
have spoken), that the decomposition of matter generates a force 
capable of raising other matter from a lower to a higher plane, 
or, as Spiritualism expresses it, the progress of the primates, 
I may add that what is termed isomerism has thus far presented 
well nigh, if not altogether, insuperable difficulties to the niate- 
rial scientist. Isomeric compounds, as you are aware, consist of 
the same elements in precisely the same proportions, but with 
different properties or qualities. Chemistry fails to account 
satisfactorily for this difference in compounds which contain 
the same ingredients in like proportions. The learned Prof. 
Mapes, some years before his ascension to his guerdon in the 
skies, aided, I believe, by that beautifully and logically attuned 
instrument of brighter minds beyond the boundary oi time, Mrs. 
Cora L. V. Richmond, threw considerable light upon this sub- 
ject in a publication given to the world in 1857. Among other 
facts, he assured us that " the fresh debris of the rock at the 
mountain side is incapable of producing the higher class of vege- 
table growth. That the double rose, for instance, cannot be 
sustained in such a soil, while the single rose, taken from a 
primitive soil and carried to the older soil of the garden, may be 
gradually improved to the double rose, and simply because the 
inorganic constituents of the garden soil have been in organic 
life many times, and have thus been rendered fit pabulum 



38 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

for the new comer." Another fact given by Prof. Mapes is 
exceedingly striking in this connection, and is clearly illustrative 
of the idea of the progress of the primates. For more than a 
century a medicine has been manufactured in London, known 
as *' James's Powders." For a long time its composition was a 
secret. The medicine, however, was in general use, and large 
quantities were annually sent to the East Indies by the East 
India Company, for the use of its medical department. It was 
very effective in the treatment of fever, and its action always 
found to be uniform. The Messrs. James, the original discov- 
erers of this medicine, died, and their successors of the same 
name, from philanthropic motives, made known the composition ; 
and the recipe for its manufacture found its way into the phar- 
macopia. It was said to be composed of the phosphate of lime 
and the oxyd of antimony, in certain relative proportions,— 
which were stated. James's Powders were soon manufactured 
by others, as well as by the immediate successors of the original 
discoverers. The East India Company advertised for proposals 
to furnish the same with medicines, — a large quantity of James's 
Powders being included in the required list. Another manu- 
facturer named a lower price for this article than that charged 
by the Messrs. James. It was furnished and sent out ; but the 
medical department maintained that it failed entirely to produce 
the usual results. The Company refused to pay the bill in con- 
sequence of the reported failure, and a suit ensued. Many of 
the first chemists, including one of the Messrs. James, made 
analyses of the rejected medicine, and gave evidence that it was 
precisely the same composition as that made by the Messrs. 
James. It appeared, however, in evidence, that the new manu- 
facturers had calcined the phosphate of lime rock^ and then com- 
bined it with the antimony as directed ; whilst the Messrs. 
James made their medicine by calcining the hones of oxen, and 
mixing the phosphate so obtained with oxyd of antimony. 
Every chemist, Mr. James included, stated there could be no 
difference in the effect of these two medicines. The Company, 



THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 39 

however, sent out a new quantity manufactured by the Messrs. 
James, and, unlike that made from the rock, it was found to 
be efficient. Thus, adds Prof. Mapes, it is clear that men, like 
plants, can only assimilate, during the process of digestion, 
such primaries as are sufficiently progressed for their use. The 
phosphate of lime procured from the bones of oxen had prob- 
ably occupied organic life thousands, and possibly millions, of 
times before it found its way into the bone of the animal, and 
from thence into the laboratory of the chemist ; and was con- 
sequently much better adapted to act in an efficient manner 
as a remedial agent, through the functional processes of the 
human system, than could reasonably be expected of the unpro- 
gressed primate extracted from the original lime rock. 

Again, science tells us that the essential oils of juniper, 
rosemary, turpentine, copaiva, and the essence of lemon are 
the same in elements and proportions ; and yet that they differ 
widely in taste, odor, medicinal qualities, boiling point, and 
specific gravity. And chemistry, as 1 have said, fails to account 
satisfactorily for such anomalous conditions. True, it is said 
" these remarkable facts can only be accounted for by the dif- 
ferent groupings of the atoms." But, we are likewise told, on 
the other hand, that this declaration does not rest upon any 
known facts that there is such a peculiarity of groupings, or 
upon any analogies elsewhere in chemistry ; for some of the 
best-informed chemists say the analogies are uniformly against 
it. In this connection, the professor already named, noting 
especially that " boiling point " is one of the differences instanced 
as existing between the oils referred to, decides that this fact is 
referable to some essential constitutional difference in the amount 
ofcetheria, — that, hence, these bodies, instead of being isomeric, 
have a uniform constitution, and that the law that physical 
properties depend upon chemical composition holds good. And, 
upon this declaration, he bases the assumption that science will 
be necessitated to choose between these two conclusions, — to set 
aside a well-established law of chemical condition, and adopt a 



40 , UNANSWERABLE LOUIC. 

hypothesis without warrant of fact and against analogy, or to 
make the atomic theory universal over the imponderable alike 
with the ponderable material, — thus affording a full and satis- 
factory exposition of isomerism, restoring the law of chemical 
condition, and making science harmonious. Thus, if it be true, 
as declared by science, that whenever any amount of matter 
returns to a lower plane through decomposition, a force is 
inevitably set free, capable of raising matter from a lower to a 
higher condition, then is it equally true that the inculcations 
of Spiritualism in regard to the progress of the atoms, and like- 
wise as to the declared agency of (so called) death and decom- 
position in the process, are measurably sustained at least ; and 
this law of progressive development is applicable to all degrees 
and conditions throughout the entire realm of matter, to all 
inorganic relations, and from the earliest and lowest organisms 
in the sphere of conformation to the last and highest earthly 
development, — the beautiful and wonderful organism of the 
body of man. 

Again, this fact of the existence of the ethereal atoms as 
elemental constituents of all ponderable bodies underlies an 
additional truth in physical science, not yet wholly recognized, 
however, from which I seek to draw the important conclusion 
toward which my remarks are tending. It is well known that 
the existence of " animal heat" in the human system has given 
rise to numerous theories as to its origin. No one of these 
theories, however, it is authoritatively alleged, has proven 
entirely satisfactory. The generally accepted opinion is that 
the greater portion of material consumed by man (about a ton 
and a half each year) becomes oxygenized or burnt ; and that 
during this process, which takes place in every portion of the 
system, heat is evoW^di,-— hidden or latent heat becoming tangible 
heat. The distinguished professor, to whom I am so much in- 
debted for the scientific data adverted to in my discourse, pro- 
nounces this assumed explanation as far from definite; in fact, 
as containing no idea of the process it claims to elucidate. This 



THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 41 

indefiBiteness, however, he declares, disappears the moment 
setheria is introduced as a constituent element of gross matter, 
rendering the process decidedly more clear and intelligible. 
Heat, it will be recollected, is simply setheria in a state of intense 
vibration. The moment these refined atoms combine with any 
other substance, as stated, their vibrations cease, and of course 
the heat engendered for the time likewise ceases, nor can the 
vibrations again commence as long as this compound remains 
intact. Upon these facts (as a substitute for the prevalent idea 
as to the origin of animal heat) Prof. Loomis bases the theory 
that " we receive aetheria into the system in our food, in a qui- 
escent, combined state, as an elemental constituent of the same ; 
but as assimilation or nutrition takes place, this food is broken 
up, a small part being used to build up the physical system, but 
by far the larger portion is eliminated in its more stable form, 
as carbonic acid, water, &c., — thus liberating astheria in every 
point of the system, in its intensely vibrating condition ; or, in 
other words, producing animal heat." 

Based upon the scientific facts already. enumerated, it seems 
to me this assumption is entirely legitimate. And, if so, the 
question naturally arises, what becomes finally of the liberated 
atoms of setheria which thus engender the heat of the body, 
the quantity being constantly increased, of course, by the addi- 
tional portions of food daily introduced into the system ? As 
additional supplies of material are being constantly broken up 
by the processes referred to, what prevents a too great accumu- 
lation of setheria, or an undue amount of animal heat ? The 
particles of grosser matter, as I have said, are disposed of by 
assimilation, nutrition, and digestion ; and through these pro- 
cesses in healthy operation, the physical body is built up and 
sustained. In addition to the production of the successive quan- 
tities of animal heat incidental to their liberation from the 
portions of grosser matter introduced into the system, what are 
the ultimately assigned duties of these more refined atoms, 
which have been, of course, increasing in quantity in the ratio 



42 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

of tlie grosser particles, from which they have become discon- 
nected by the functional operations referred to ? Is there any 
law through the application of which these interrogatories may 
be satisfactorily answered ? Let us see. , ' j , > 

As repeatedly stated, heat is simply the particles of aetheria in 
a state of intense vibration, the heat diminishing as the vibra- 
tion ceases. But, as I have asked, what becomes of these atoms 
of aetheria within the physical body, as their heat-engendering 
activity ceases ? The law that gives the solution to all estab- 
lished chemical changes, if applied, will likewise give the solui- 
tion in this case. Science tells us that oxygen, when brought 
into contact with certain substances, disappears, *. e., becomes 
latent; and we are further told that it has combined to form a 
new substance. In the case before us, it is evident that, from 
some cause, successive quantities of heat within the system dis- 
appear, — become latent. This is necessarily true, or the over- 
plus of heat in the human body would become oppressive, and 
finally destructive, through the daily introduction of food into 
the system, together with its continuous dissolution, and conse- 
quent liberation of the vibrating atoms referred to. Why may 
not the same law of chemical changes be applicable in this case?. 
Here heat is continually disappearing ; and why not carry out 
the analogy of its having entered into combination^ as w:ell as 
oxygen? — the more especially, as we know, through the unmis- 
takable phenomena of Spiritualism, that there is another sub- 
stance connected with this physical body of ours, though sepa- 
rate and distinct in the nature of its composition, a more refined 
and ethereal substance, of which the inner casket of the intell,i- 
gent soul, the spiritual body, is formed. And this, 1 apprehend, 
is literally the fact; and this is the immediate conclusion toward 
which my remarks have been tending. In other words, the 
ethereal particles introduced into the system by the process 
referred to (in accordance with the law of affinity applicable to 
all substances, visible or invisible) combine with their kindred 
atoms in building up and fashioning the ethereal or spiritual 



THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 43 

body; just as do the atoms of grosser matter, in the manufac- 
ture and preservation of the outer form, thus rendering the 
spiritual or ethereal body as essentially the result of the organic 
law of growth, hy the supply of material from kindred elements, 
as is the outer or material body. And this, my friends, as I 
have said, is the conclusion I have sought to establish, and 
which I have claimed is in harmony with the declarations of St. 
Paul to the Corinthians : " There is a natural body, and there 
is a spiritual body.'' And " there are also celestial bodies, and 
bodies terrestrial; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the 
glory of the terrestrial is another." Hence, to my mind, the 
conviction is irresistible, as was quoted in the commencement, 
that " there is nothing in chemistry, mechanics, or physics gen- 
erally that can authoritatively stamp as unscientific the hypoth- 
esis of a supersensual organism, developed pari pussu with the 
physical, and acting between it and the life constantly inflowing 
from the central source of all things. Neither observation nor 
science has any evidence to offer against this idea." And this 
divine life within we term the soul, or spirit, per se, — the in- 
telligent principle, — which is destined, in the ethereal encase- 
ment of which I have been speaking, to outwork immortal 
destinies in ethereal realms beyond the confines of time, when 
the material body shall have been laid aside forever. 

If these propositions be legitimate, the corollary is equally so, 
that this spiritual organism of which I have been speaking — 
formed, as I have endeavored to establish, in accordance with the 
universal laws of beinfj — -can but be designed for hioher uses and 
a more ethereal realm than the material encasement in which 
it has been formed, and the material universe to which that 
material encasement is especially adapted. And that death, 
therefore, cannot be a final termination to human existence, 
since God in nature performs no bootless task, and evolves no 
form but for specific uses. Hence, what is termed death can 
be but an incident of time — an event greeted by many far 
too sorrowfully — in the everlasting life-line of the human soul. 



44 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

And the process of the elimiiiation of the spiritual body from 
its mold of clay, when the phenomenon of death (so called) 
occurs, according to the testimony of the most reliable spiritual 
clairvoyants, is strikingly in harmony with the scientific facts 
of which I have been speaking, as to the liberation of ethereal 
particles in a state of luminous activity, through the decay and 
decomposition of the grosser matter of which it has been a con- 
stituent element. Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie 
Seer, and one of the most developed the world has ever had, 
whilst in a favorable condition, was enabled to observe and 
investigate the mysterious processes of what is termed dying. 
He speaks thus of the wonderful event which, in Christendom 
more than any other portion of the world, I believe, has been 
surrounded with such unwarrantable fear, as well as heart- 
rending sadness : — 

" I saw," he says, " that the physical organization could no 
longer subserve the diversified purposes or requirements of the 
spiritual principle. But the various internal organs of the body 
appeared to resist the withdrawal of the animating soul. The 
muscular system struggled to retain the element of motion ; the 
vascular system strove to retain the element of life ; the nervous 
system put forth all its powers to retain the element of sensa- 
tion ; and the cerebral system labored to retain the principle of 
intelligence. The body and the soul, like two friends, strongly 
resisted the various circumstances which rendered their eternal 
separation imperative and absolute. These internal conflicts 
gave rise to manifestations of what seemed to be, to the material 
senses, the most thrilling and painful sensations ; but I was 
unspeakably thankful and delighted when I perceived and real- 
ized the fact that those physical manifestations were indications 
not of pain or unhappiness, but simply that the spirit was eter- 
nally dissolving its copartnership with the material organism. 
" Now the head of the body became suddenly enveloped i7i 
a fine, soft^ mellow, luminous atmosphere [corresponding, you 
perceive, to the liberated ethereal atoms of which I have been 
speaking] ; and, as instantly I saw the cerebrum and the cere- 
bellum expand their most interior portions, I saw them discon- 
tinue their appropriate galvanic functions ; and then I saw that 



THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 45 

they became highly charged with the vital electricity and vital 
magnetism which permeate subordinate systems and structures ; 
that is to say, the brain, as a whole, suddenly declared itself 
to be tenfold more positive over the lesser portions of the 
body than it ever was during the period of health. This phe- 
nomenon invariably precedes physical dissolution. Now the 
process of dying, or of the spirit's departure from the body, was 
fully commenced. The brain began to attract the elements of 
electricity, of magnetism, of motion, of life, and of sensation 
into its various and numerous departments. The head became 
intensely brilliant, and I particularly remarked that just in the 
same proportion as the extremities of the organism grew dark 
and cold, the brain appeared light and glowing. Now I saw, 
in the mellow, spiritual atmosphere, which emanated from and 
encircled the head, the indistinct outlines of the formation of 
another head! .... This new head unfolded more and 
more distinctly, and so indescribably compact and intensely 
brilliant did it become that I could neither see through it or gaze 
upon it as steadily as 1 desired. While this spiritual head was 
being eliminated and organized from out of and above the 
material head, 1 saw that the surrounding aromal atmosphere 
which had emanated from the material head was in great com- 
motion ; but, as the new head became more distinct and perfect^ this 
brilliant atmosphere gradually disappeared. [Again, you per- 
ceive, this relation is precisely correspondential to the scientific 
facts adverted to. Mr. Davis continues:] This taught me 
that those aromal elements which were in the beginning of the 
metamorphosis attracted from the system into the brain, and 
thence eliminated in the form of an atmosphere, were indissolu- 
bly united in accordance with the divine principle of affinity in 
the universe which pervades and destinates every particle of 
matter, and this developed the spiritual head which 1 beheld. 

" With inexpressible wonder, and with a heavenly and unut- 
terable reverence, I gazed upon the holy and harmonious pro- 
cesses that were going on before me. In the identical manner 
in which the spiritual head was eliminated and unchangeably 
organized, I saw unfolding in their natural progressive order 
the harmonious development of the neck, the shoulders, the 

breast, and the entire spiritual organization The 

defects and deformities of the physical body were in the spiritual 
body which I saw thus developed almost completely removed. 
In other words, it seemed that those hereditary obstructions and 



46 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

influences were now removed which originally arrested the full 
and proper development of the physical constitution ; and there- 
fore that her spiritual constitution being elevated above those 
obstructions was enabled to unfold and perfect itself, in accord- 
ance with the universal tendencies of all things." 

Mr. Davis continues the interesting experience at some 
length ; but what I have quoted, it seems to me, is sufficient to 
establish the analogy sought to be enforced by the remarks to 
which you have listened. 

And again, this idea of the existence of man, even in time, as 
an individualized spiritual being — possessed of an outside cover- 
ing of clay, designed for the uses and pleasures of the earth life 
alone — is gaining acceptance, I am gratified to state, among 
more advanced theologians, notwithstanding long existing dog- 
mas to the contrary. On the first Sunday in Lent, 1879, I sat 
in Westminster Abbey, — that venerable mausoleum of Eng- 
land's good and great for nearly a thousand years past, — and 
listened to a discourse from Rev. Canon Farrar, one of the 
ablest and boldest pioneers of free thought the present century 
has afforded. The echoes of the (so-called) Apostles Creed — 
"I believe in the resurrection of the body " — had scarcely died 
away amid the monuments and tombs of superstitious venera- 
tion around me, when his clear, manly voice was heard ringing 
along the arches and architraves of the majestic pile, in tones 
unmistakably impressive : " Ye have bodies^ my friends ; but ye 
are spirits'^ The one sentence of the Creed seemed the dying 
cadence of departing love. Whilst the declaration of the in- 
spired speaker sounded to my soul as the clarion notes of a 
world's progress. 

In conclusion — 



We are spirits clothed in veils, — 
Soul by soul is never seen ; 

All earth's cold communing fails 
To remove from us the screen.' 



THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 47 

Man by man is rarely known ; 

Mind with mind dotLi rarely meet; 
We are columns left alone 

Of a temple incomplete. 

Like the stars that gem the sky, 

Far apart, though seeming near, 
In our light we scattered lie, — 

All is thus but starlight here. 

Only when the sun of love 

Melts the scattered store of thought,— 
Only when we live above, 

What the dim-eyed world has taught, — 

Only when our souls are fed 

By the Fount which gave them birth, 
And by inspiration led 

Which we cannot draw from earth,— 

We, like parted drops of dew, 

Swelling till they meet again, 
Shall be all refreshed anew, — 

Eesting — loving — without pain." 



LECTURE III. 

THE ANALOGY EXISTING BETWEEN THE FACTS OP THE BIBLE 
AND THE FACTS OF SPIRITUALISM. 

Scientists tell us that there are in the mineral world certain 
crystals which have lain darkly in the earth for ages, but which, 
nevertheless contain a potency of light locked up within them ; 
that in their case the potential has never become the actual, — - 
the light in fact being held back by a molecular detent. When 
these crystals are warmed, the detent is lifted and an outflow 
of light immediately begins. 

In a general sense it may be appropriately remarked in this 
connection how often do the analogies of physical nature inter- 
pret the vexing enigmas of intellectual and psychological inquiry. 
And in a more especial sense may we not find an analogy be- 
tween this truth in the realm of the material and the subject 
matter we are considering? The phenomena of Spiritualism 
Sire facts in nature which have lain darkly for centuries beneath 
an incrustation of ignorance as to man's spiritual capacities. In 
their case, as in that of the crystals, the potential has failed to 
become the actual, — the light held back, indeed, by the detent 
of materialistic tendencies which so soon took the place of the 
dawning spirituality which characterized the first century of the 
Christian era. But through the progress of ideas, and the 
natural expansion of thought, these mental and emotional jew- 
els of the soul are being warmed into life, — the detent of mate- 
rialism is being lifted, and an outflow of light and joy, thank 

(48) 



FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 49 

God, is beginning to find its way into tlie hearts of the men and 
women of this the coronal century of all the ages. 

Spiritualists believe, as stated in a previous lecture, that the 
spiritual man is the real man, the external body being merely 
a material shell or covering designed for the uses and pleasures 
of an earthly existence only ; the man has a conscious indi- 
vidual existence as a spirit immediately after the death of the 
body ; and that he can, and under proper conditions does, mani- 
fest himself and communicate with those still remaining in the 
earth life. Those who believe these facts are generally termed 
Spiritualists, whatever else they may believe or disbelieve. 

But the term Spiritualism is also applicable to a system of 
philosophy or religion recognizing the facts just named as car- 
dinal features. When thus applied, it is defined as embracing all 
truth relating to the spiritual nature of man, — its constitution, 
capabilities, duties, welfare, and destiny ; also all that is or may 
be known relative to the spirit world and its inhabitants ; to 
spiritual influences of whatever kind, and to all the occult forces 
of the universe which are spiritual in their nature. When thus 
defined, it will be perceived that Spiritualism is no narrow 
superstition, as has been supposed by too many, but an all com- 
prehensive system of truth. It includes, in the estimation of its 
intelligent adherents, all true philosophy, all true theology, all 
true theosophy, all true religion, and lies at the basis of all 
true science ; whilst its grand practical aim may be briefly stated 
to be the quickening and growth of the spiritual or divine im- 
pulses of our nature, — which we believe to be innate, — to the 
end that all animal and selfish propensities may be subordi- 
nated, and all evil or disorderly affections overcome. 

But it is of the cardinal facts of Spiritualism particularly that 
I am to speak at this time. To these alleged facts quite a body 
of mind in Christendom stand opposed, on the ground that they 
are contrary to the letter and spirit of the Bible. Against this 
opinion of Christendom I propose to make issue ; and I shall 
attempt to show that the phenomena of Spiritualism on which 



60 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

rest the items of faith, or rather of knowledge to which I have 
adverted, are not only not antagonistic to the Bible, but that 
they are strictly analogous to the facts recorded in that book ; 
indeed, that there is such a striking analogy between the two 
classes of facts presented as to be apparent to the most casual 
observer. 

And just here, perhaps, I ought to premise, and I wish the 
premise to be fully understood, that, in adverting to the facts 
recorded in the Bible, I intend no special disrespect to that 
book ; on the contrary, I have no hesitation in averring that, 
although the spiritual school by no means recognizes its pages 
as infallible, still there are hundreds and thousands of Spiritual- 
ists today who reverence the truths perceptible in the Bible more 
than they ever did before they became such. And for this rea- 
son — looking at the spirit and not the mere letter — they find 
in their own system an extension of the views of some of the 
inspired minds of other days, together with a clear and brilliant 
light thrown upon many of the obscurities of the past by the 
unmistakable truth and beauty of the actual demonstrations of 
the present. 

Entertaining such views, in the very outset of our examina- 
tion of this Jewish record of spiritual phenomena, my friends, I 
can but exclaim (in the language of modern inspiration ) — 

** Is God asleep, that He should cease to be 
All that He was to Prophets of the past ? 
All that He was to poets of old time ? 
All that He was to hero souls, who clad 
Their suu-bright minds in adamantine mail 
Of constancy, and walked the world with Him, 
And spake with His deep music on their tongue, 
And acted with His pulse within the heart, 
And died, — or seemed to outward sense to die, — 
Evanishing in light, as if the sun 
Gathered its image back into itself ? 
Is God less real now than when He sang, 
Aud smote with His right hand the harp of space 



FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 51 

And all the stars from His electric breath, 

In golden galaxies of harmony, 

Went cheering out, heart flushed with life, from Him? 

Open thy soul to God, O man, and talk 
Through thy unfolded faculties with Him 
Who never, save through faculties of mind, 
Spake unto the Fathers." 

But to the facts ; and let us commence with the first book 
in the record. In the 16th chapter of Genesis, you will recol- 
lect, it is stated that an angel appeared to Hagar (Sarah's maid) 
in the wilderness, and comforted her, and this one word comfort 
is the comprehensive definition of spiritual visitations today. 

In the 18th chapter of Genesis it is recorded that three 
angels, in the form of men, — that is, materialized, — appeared 
to Abraham upon the plains of Mamre, and that Abraham 
entertained these angels with material food, — -of which they 
partook. Many Spiritualists can readily accept this statement, 
since, in the present day, they have witnessed the same mani- 
festation of spirit presence. But, how can any mind credit the 
existence of such a phenomenon in any age that denies the 
possibility of spirits rendering themselves visible at all ? Again, 
during the interview between Abraham and these angels, or 
spirits, who presented themselves in the form of men, as is done 
today, we are told that the promise was made to Abraham 
that through his seed all the nations of the earth should be 
blessed ; and this promise is said to constitute the basis upon 
which rests the whole Christian plan of salvation. I leave it, 
therefore, to those who believe in the alleged truth and beauty 
of this plan to determine for themselves whether or not any 
credence is to be given to the declaration of the spiritual school 
that visitors from another life can and do manifest themselves 
to mortals. 

In the 19th chapter of Genesis we are told, two angels (also 
in the form of men) appeared to Lot in the gate of Sodom, 
and through the warning received from these angels his family 



52 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

and himself were saved from impending evil. Many hearts 
among the Spiritualists are tonight filled with gratitude for 
the warnings they have received from the angel world, through 
which they have been enabled to ward off an impending danger, 
or divert some threatened sorrow, — neither of which could 
otherwise have been avoided. 

And, too, if that great and good man, who is now an active 
and happy spirit, — if Abraham Lincoln, who has left his vir- 
tues as a legacy to the nation, — had listened to the voices of 
warning from the spirit world as communicated to him through 
more than one medium, he would not have been the victim of so 
treacherous and damnable a taking-off. I was in Washington 
at the time, and know of what I speak. 

In the 21st chapter of Genesis it is stated that an angel again 
appeared to Hagar on behalf of the poor boy Ishmael, and again 
comforted the mother. Oh, are there not many mothers today 
within the borders of Spiritualism who can attest to the fact 
that angels do comfort them in their duties, — duties unques- 
tionably the holiest upon earth ? 

In the 22nd chapter of Genesis it is stated that an angel 
arrested the arm of Abraham when he was about committing 
murder upon the body of his son Isaac, under the supposition 
that God had tempted him to do so. The Spiritualist believes 
that an undeveloped spirit might have tempted him to do so, but 
that according to the epistle of James, 1st chapter, 13th verse, 
God tempteth no man to evil. 

In the 28th chapter of Genesis Jacob is reported to have had 
a beautiful dream, in which he saw a ladder extending from 
earth to heaven, up and down which angels were ascending and 
descending. Modern Spiritualism is proving today that there 
is an intellectual and aflectional ladder reaching from earth to 
Heaven, bright with beckoning angels, — a practical Jacob's 
ladder, — indeed, "a* mighty column, of which physics is the 
base, science the shaft, metaphysics the superstructure, and 
Spiritualism the coronal glory of the capital, whose starry 



FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 53 

crown pierces the overarching firmament of Heaven." You 
believe in the dream of other ages, and deny the fact of today. 

In the 30th and 31st chapters of Genesis, Jacob is said to 
have had another dream, in which he receives the curious 
advice — to say the least of it — by means of which the prop- 
erty of his uncle Laban is transferred to himself ; and during 
this dream, likewise, he is advised to leave his uncle Laban. 

In the 32nd chapter of Genesis it is related that, after having 
left his uncle Laban, he meets the angels in the road, and he 
calls them God's hosts ; and, after he had sent his servants to 
meet his brother Esau, an angel, in the form of a man, wrestled 
with him until the breaking of the day. Now, this formerly 
seemed rather absurd to some of the Spiritualists ; but, since 
their recognition of modern phenomena, they can readily believe 
it, because there are mediums all through the country today 
who know that physical force from an unseen personage has 
been repeatedly exercised toward them. There is another 
analogy here, likewise: Jacob was distressed and worried — just 
as many of you Spiritualists are sometimes worried and fretted 
when you go to a medium — because the spirit will not or does 
not tell its name. And yet we all know that it is wholly im- 
material from whom the truth is received, so it be demonstrated 
as such. 

Again, it is alleged among other things that the tendency of 
modern Spiritualism is demoralizing ; that the communications 
received through modern media are calculated to lead men and 
women into error. Well, I shall not now inquire as to the truth 
or falsity of this statement further than to see if the analogy 
will not hold good even here. 

In the 3rd chapter of Exodus it is stated that, while Moses 
was watching the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro, near Mount 
Horeb, an angel appeared to him, and appointed him to the 
captaincy of the Israelitish hosts in their comtemplated Exodus 
from Egypt. In the course of the interview between the angel 
and Moses, the angel instructed Moses that the Israelitish 



54 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

women should fraudulently possess themselves of the jewels 
and the raiment of the Egyptian women,— in other words, steal 
them. Did you ever receive such advice as that through any 
medium ? 

On the contrary, are not the communications received through 
most mediums of the most refininsf and ennoblius: character? 
And yet many, while believing in the mediumship of Moses, 
denounce modern Spiritualism as demoralizing, and seek to tax 
these glorious benefactors of the race. 

In the 14th chapter of Exodus it is affirmed that an angel 
preceded the host of Israel in the final exodus. The Spiritual- 
ists fully and gratefully believe in the guidance of their angel 
friends through the tortuous pathways of an earthly existence. 
Nor are we altogether alone in this respect. I myself heard 
the late Rev. Dr. Durbin — a most amiable and cultivated gentle- 
man, as well as a spiritually developed and distinguished clergy- 
man — say that, during his extensive travels as a missionary 
and otherwise, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, he had 
never met with a single casualty ; and that he attributed the 
fact to angel guidance and protection. And he added this em- 
phatic statement, which I most cordially concur in : " Those who 
deny the fact of angel guidance are in effect wiping out the entire 

Bihur 

In the 22nd chapter of Numbers it is said that an angel met 
Balaam by the way as he was proceeding to the camp of the 
Moabites, whose ruler had invited him to come, in order that 
he might curse the Israelites, whose encroachments he had 
begun to fear. 

In the 24tli chapter of Numbers, Balaam is said to have fal- 
len into a trance with his eyes open, and to have seen the vision 
presented. This is precisely the condition claimed by some of 
the mediums in modern times. 

In the 2nd chapter of Judges it is stated that an angel spake 
to all the people at Bochim. 

In the 6th chapter of Judges we have an account of a mani- 



FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 55 

festation of spirit presence, during the progress of which the 
recipient gave indications of precisely just such conditions as 
too frequently prevail today among some professed Spiritualists 
as well as other investigators, — that is, a constant disposition to 
doubt the existing manifestation, no matter how convincing the 
previous one may have been. 1 allude to the following : At 
the time that Israel was oppressed by Midian, an angel appeared 
to Gideon, and appointed him to the captaincy of the Israelites 
against the Midianites. Now, Gideon was a constitutional 
doubter, evidently, such as we have today in some quarters ; 
he did not believe what the angel told him ; and he asked of the 
angel a test, which was this, that he might be permitted to 
place a fleece of wool upon the ground, and that during the 
night the ground should remain dry and the fleece become wet. 
The angel did this for Gideon, and so effectually, the record 
states, that a bowlful of water was wrung from the fleece of 
wool. Still Gideon was not satisfied, and he said : " Will my 
Lord permit that I again place the fleece of wool, and may the 
ground become wet and the fleece of wool remain dry ? " The 
angel of the Lord did this, and still Gideon was not satisfied, 
nor was he convinced until he received still another manifesta- 
tion, as is related in the 7th chapter, that of the tumbling of a 
cake of barley bread into the Midianitish camp. All that lean 
say with regard to these manifestations is that the next time 
any doubting Spiritualists visit any medium in your city, I hope 
they may find an angel as complaisant as the one that visited 
Gideon. 

In the 1 3th chapter of Judges, an angel appeared to the wife 
of Manoah, who was barren, and promised her the birth of a 
child. Afterward the angel appeared to Manoah and his wife 
at the same time ; and the record states that they conversed 
with the angel, and did not know that he was an angel until he 
disappeared in the flame of their own burnt offering. Fre- 
quently with some of the mediums of modern times it is difficult 
for them to distinguish at the first presentation whether they 



66 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

are conversing with a resident of earth or one who has returned 
from the brighter shore, so palpably natural is the appearance. 

In the 5th chapter of Joshua it is related that, when Joshua 
was proceeding against Jericho, he saw a man standing against 
the wall with a drawn sword in his hand. He advanced to him, 
and demanded to know on which side he fought. The record 
states that the angel of the Lord replied that he appeared there 
as the captain of the Lord's hosts, and that he would fight on 
Joshua's side. 

In the 19th chapter of 1st Kings it is recounted that an 
angel appeared to Elijah more than once while he was fleeing 
from the anger of Jezebel to Mount Horeb, and that the angel 
fed Elijah with material food. 

Again, it is charged that spirits through modern media are 
disposed to tell falsehoods ; in other words, that they will lie, 
and that they are otherwise evil. Admitting this to be occa- 
sionally true, let us see if the analogy will not hold good even 
in this respect. 

In the 22nd chapter of 1st Kings it is stated that God himself 
put a lying spirit into the mouths of all the prophets of Ahab, 
in order that he might he deceived. 

In the 9th chapter of Judges it is stated that Grod sent evil 
spirits between Abimelech and the men of Shechem ; and the 
men of Shechem acted treacherously to Abimelech. 

In the 78th Psalm it is stated that God cast the fierceness 
of His anger upon the Egyptians, by doing what? By sending 
evil spirits among them. 

In the 16th chapter of 1st Samuel it is stated that an evil 
spirit from God came upon Saul. With what a bad grace, then, 
do these allegations against this much repudiated and much 
misunderstood system come, at least from Biblical objectors ! 
And if the one system is to be denounced on account of imper- 
fection in some of the details, why not the other likewise ? 

Again, one class of our mediums are heralded all over the 
land as impostors because of the material nature of their mani- 



FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 5T 

festations. Some are denounced because of their being tied 
with ropes ; others because horns are used to speak through 
in their presence ; others because of the bringing of solid sub- 
stances into closed rooms, and because of rapping, and tipping, 
and writing upon slates, &c. Said a very estimable and highly 
cultivated lady to me some time since, she being the widow of 
a clergyman and I the son of one : " Mr. Forster, I cannot 
conceive how you can for a moment suppose that such a spirit 
as my husband or your father must be could condescend to rap 
upon or tip a table." Now, this is all prejudice, my friends, mis- 
taken, unhappy prejudice. Does not the Infinite preside in the 
material as well as in the ethereal elements ? Who shall deter- 
mine what portion of the bright universe of which we are a part 
shall be put to honor, and what portion to dishonor ? But let 
us see whether the analogy will still hold good, and whether 
there were any physical mediums among the people of whom 
I am speaking. 

In the 6th chapter of 2nd Kings it is stated that Elisha, who 
was certainly one of the best mediums of the olden time, and 
upon whom the mantle of the gifted Elijah fell, — that Elisha, 
through the power controlling him, caused a solid iron axe to 
swim upon the river Jordan. Is Elisha's axe any less material 
than a horn or a slate ? 

In the 21st chapter of 1st Chronicles it is stated that David 
had offended God by numbering the people, and that God had 
given him the choice of three modes of punishment ; and, fur- 
ther, that David's means of communication with God were 
through Gad, the seer. From this it appears they had medi- 
ums then, and according to this record David — a man after 
God's own heart — communicated with God through one of 
them. Gad, the seer, was the agent through whom David 
received the decision of God, as it is claimed. Examine the 
manifestations of Gad, the seer; compare them with the mani- 
festations of Andrew Jackson Davis, the seer ; compare them 
with the manifestations of many of the seers of today, and judge 



58 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

for yourself which of the two gives the greater evidence of 
divine authenticity. 

In the 21st chapter of 2nd Chronicles it is related that a hand- 
writing came from Elijah, the prophet, to Jehoram, king of 
Judah, when, as the chronology proves, Elijah had, thirteen years 
before, gone to heaven in a chariot of fire. What reference 
can this possibly have if not to corresponding, conditions in the 
present day, such as relate to writing mediums ? 

In the o4th chapter of second Chronicles we are told that 
when Josiah was King of Judah, he determined that he would 
rebuild the house of the Lord. He sent Hilkiah and others to 
superintend the removal of the rubbish, and to make other 
arrangements preparatory to this rebuilding. Hilkiah found a 
book in the rubbish of the temple ; he submitted it to the scribe ; 
the scribe submitted it to the king ; the king directed that it 
should be submitted — to whom, think you ? To Huldah, the 
prophetess. The voice of Huldah was believed by king Josiah to 
be the voice of God, and, consequently, final ; and Huldah decided 
that this book was the book of the law of the Lord as given by. 
Moses. This occurrence took place about one thousand years 
after the date assigned to the life and writing of Moses, so that 
for this one thousand years the world was without the books of 
Moses. 

You believe in the Pentateuch, many of you. You believe 
that the law of the Lord as given by Moses is important ; and 
yet the world is dependent for those books upon a spiritual 
medium by the name of Huldah, and a woman at that. You 
have many such prophetesses and mediums today ; and, lo ! 
instead of crediting their beautiful communications, it is pro- 
posed in some localities to tax them as you would a gin palace 
or a beer garden. 

The Biblical objector believes in the book of Moses as given 
through the inspiration of Huldah, and yet denounces these 
women who are seeresses and prophetesses and clairvoyants for 
exhibiting their mediumship, when they are just as good, just as 



FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 59 

pure, just as perfect, just as intelligent, just as honorable, and 
just as honest as was Huldah. 

In the 69th Psalm is a very remarkable text. David is 
represented as uttering a prayer against his enemies, and he 
makes use of this expression : "May their tables become a 
snare; and may that which was intended for their welfare 
become a trap." Now, it is difficult, I admit, to tell what this 
text alludes to ; but, if it is an allusion to correspondiug mani- 
festations of the present day, no one but an experienced investi- 
gator of Spiritualism can tell how deep must have been the 
malignity of any man's heart who could have uttered such a 
prayer. 

In the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd chapters of Ezekiel it is written 
that the prophet is favored by visions ; and, in the course of one 
of them, he distinctly says : " The spirit entered into me, and 
enabled me to hear a voice from the sky." Just what is claimed 
by many of the trance mediums of today. 

In the 3rd chapter of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- 
nego were cast into a fiery furnace, and an angel was seen 
walking with them ; and, through the magnetic emanations of 
themselves and the spirit, the fiery furnace was prevented from 
injuring them. We have in the present day mediums who can 
handle fire, and even place the head and face on a grate of burn- 
ing coals with impunity. The mediums of modern times are 
called jugglers by the very persons who give credence to the 
account of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. 

In the 5th chapter of Daniel it is stated that an angel wrote 
upon the trembling walls of the palace of the reveling Belshaz- 
zar : " Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin," and that a medium, 
as Spiritualists recognize the fact, interpreted the spiritual 
chirography. 

We have electric writing upon the wall in the presence of 
many mediums in modern times ; and the medium Powell will 
write with the bare ball of his finger upon a slate or paper 
handed to him by anyone in his circle. The manifestation of 



60 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

thousands of years ago is credited by those who denounce the 
phenomena of the present day as charlatanry. 

In the 6th chapter of Daniel we learn that Daniel was cast 
into a den of lions, and that God sent an angel and shut the 
lions' mouths. Spiritualists may believe this; but how can 
anyone do so who denies that spirits can either communicate 
intelligibly or control physically ? 

In the 10th chapter of Daniel it is stated that, after fasting, 
Daniel was entranced, — not only the fact as it exists in modern 
times, but the exact phraseology is used likewise. After fast- 
ing, — the practice with many of the mediums of the present 
day, — Daniel was entranced, and a spirit approached him in the 
form of a man, and spoke to him, and touched him. Precisely 
similar manifestations are occurring almost hourly all over the 
land. In this connection, I may remark that some Biblical 
objectors affirm that Gabriel and Other angels appearing to the 
ancients were not the spirits of the departed, but " beings of a 
special creation.'" Yet Daniel distinctly says in the 9th chapter : 
Hheman GahrieV approached him and touched him. 

In the 9th chapter of Nehemiah it is said that on a certain 
occasion all the people praised God. What for ? Because he 
sent a good spirit to talk to them. 

In the 9th chapter of 1st Samuel occurs a little history, 
which I will give briefly. It is recorded that a number of the 
asses belonging to Kish, the father of Saul, had strayed away ; 
that Saul's father sent him and one of his servants to search 
for the asses ; that, after they had been searching for some days, 
Saul became fatigued, and, remarking this fact to the servant, 
suggested a return. The servant said to him : " Behold, now 
there is in this city a man of God, and he is an honorable man : 
all that ho saith cometh surely to pass : now, let us go thither ; 
peradventure he can shew us our way that we should go." Saul 
said : " But, behold, if we go, what shall we bring the man?" 
The servant said : " Behold, I have here at hand the fourth 



FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 61 

part of a shekel of silver ; that will I give to the man of God to 
tell us our way." This was a little more than fifteen cents. 

It was customary in those days for mediums to take money 
for their manifestations. It seems in the present day they are 
condemned and taxed for so doing. The good Samuel took 
money for telling where the asses of Kish had strayed. It is said 
further that God had appeared to Samuel the day before, and 
had told about the asses, and had told him, likewise, that Saul 
would come, and that when Saul did arrive, he must detain him 
for a day, and anoint him to become king in Israel. When 
Saul reached Samuel, Samuel told him that the asses of his 
father had returned home, and that now Saul's father was sor- 
rowing for him ; nevertheless, he must remain a day with him. 
He did remain a day, and he went forth anointed as the future 
ruler of Israel. But he went forth also, my friends, with 
another blessing, — with precisely the condition that has been 
engendered in a thousand instances in the present day by a visit 
to strongly magnetic mediums. He left, a medium himself ; 
and, as the evidence of it, you will find that in the 16th chapter 
it is related that he was controlled, as many mediums are, in 
their earlier experiences, by an undeveloped spirit. How did 
he get rid of this spirit? By precisely the same method that 
Spiritualists and mediums get rid of undeveloped spirits today, — 
by calling in the agency of music and harmony. David was 
sent for, that he might play upon his harp, thus creating better 
conditions ; and the evil spirit departed. Is there not a strik- 
ing analogy in this entire chapter between the facts there related 
and those of modern times ? 

Again, you have all heard of the " Witch of Endor," as she 
is called, — the woman referred to in the 28th chapter of 1st 
Samuel, with regard to whom, in connection with our mediums, 
many clergymen have attempted to be exceedingly witty. The 
Bible does not call that woman a " witch " from the beginning 
to the end of the chapter; the word "witch "is not in the 
chapter ; it is in the heading only, and that heading, you, of 



62 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

course, understand, was supplied by the translators. She was a 
good medium, and a benevolent, kind-hearted woman, too ; for, 
although poor in this world's goods, she set before Saul all that 
she had. She gave him, too, what would be called in modern 
phraseology, " a sitting," or a seance, and the result was that 
the spirit of Samuel presented himself; and Saul received a 
communication and a prophecy that was fulfilled. Away, then, 
with this idea of traducing that good woman of the olden time. 
Mediums are sometimes called " witches " in the present day. 
Nearly three hundred years ago they were called " witches " 
in Massachusetts, and were hanged for it. Mediums, do not be 
alarmed when they call you witches ; rest assured that the 
Witch of Endor — as she is called— was a good woman, and 
was doing God's work in the best way she knew how, and 
angels can do no more. 

Again, in the 32nd chapter of Job is the declaration : " But 
there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of t?ie Almighty 
giveth them understanding." In the next chapter, the 33rd, it 
is stated : '' In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep 
sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed," God 
" openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction," — every 
word of which the Spiritualist, and only the Spiritualist, can 
believe intelligently. 

But let us turn to the New Testament, and in the first chap- 
ter we find a spirit manifestation, or angel visitation, of some 
considerable importance in Christendom. An angel appears to 
Joseph in a dream, and explains the condition of Mary before 
marriage. Of this manifestation I need say but little at pres- 
ent. It is worthy of remark, however, that the doctrine of the 
vicarious atonement, which the spiritual school does not accept, 
and which the Biblical objector to Spiritualism does, rests upon 
the question whether or not there is in the economy of the uni- 
verse any law by or through which an angel could have actually 
appeared to Joseph. Of the dogma itself we may have more to 
say in a future lecture. 



FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 63 

In the 28th chapter of Matthew it is stated that an angel 
appeared to the two Marys at the sepulcher. What is more, he 
performed a physical manifestation in removing the stone from 
the door of the sepulcher ; and what is of still greater signifi- 
cance in this age of skepticism and doubt, it was done in the 
dark, just before the dawn. In the present day, I am aware 
much distrust prevails even among Spiritualists in regard to 
manifestations done in the dark, whilst they are denounced 
altogether by the Biblical objector to modern phenomena. And 
yet the analogy claimed still holds good in this respect, — since 
many or most of the manifestations recorded in the New Testa- 
ment occurred in the dark. For myself, however, I can but 
think that the suspicions entertained in this respect are without 
legitimate foundation. True, we are not, as yet, cognizant of 
all the methods through which our spirit friends act ; but we do 
know that they are amenable to law, and are consequently com- 
pelled to require certain conditions in the bestowal of their 
beneficence, the nature of which conditions, of course, they are 
the most competent judges. We know but little as yet in any 
direction, notwithstanding the boasted wisdom of certain schools 
of thought ; but as we continue our investigations of the mys- 
teries of nature, we shall doubtless increase in knowledge as to 
the occult forces that are in operation continually in and around 
us. We are told by our spirit friends that darkness occupies a 
negative relation in nature, in contradistinction to light, which 
is a positive principle in the economy of the universe ; whilst 
recent investigations of Prof. Crookes of the Scientific Society 
of London have confirmed the fact that the rays of light abso- 
lutely exert a positive physical energy. And this is in strict 
conformity with what the spirits had previously announced, but 
which was discredited. This is one step, at least, toward the 
solution of an acknowledged difficulty in the line of investiga- 
tion. But what we have learned of the dealings of our spirit 
friends towards us in the light should certainly engender an 
abiding confidence in the integrity and benevolence of their 



64 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

approach, at all times, even though it may be occasionally in 
the dark. And again, why should there be so much distrust of 
our mediums in this connection, — men and women, whom we 
would trust on any other plane of thought and action ? True, 
there have been charlatans and imitators. These, however, are 
the exceptions, and favor the truth of the general proposition. 
In other words, had there been no genuine manifestations, 
there could have been no counterfeits, of course. Until we 
learn more, therefore, let us venture to trust the philosophy of 
conditions, since we find this law prevailing throughout the 
entire realm of matter and of motion, whilst darkness is evi- 
dently one of the conditions of growth in nature ? Does not 
the great God of the universe, indeed, hold a dark circle once 
in every twenty-four hours, whilst all the table lands of earth 
are turned upside down thereby ? and does not the Good Father, 
through the darkness that succeeds the day, manifest his pres- 
ence as forcibly and as lovingly in the twinkling divinity of the 
bright-eyed stars, and in the brilliancy of the silver-faced moon 
in her pathway of benevolence and beauty, as when he floods 
with sunshine the generous bosom of our common mother ? 

In the 1st chapter of Luke it is said that an angel appeared 
to Zacharias and promised the birth of John. Zacharias and 
his wife being both well stricken in years, he doubted the ful- 
fillment of the promise, and said as much in effect to the angel. 
In reply the angel said : " Behold, thou shah be dumb, and not 
able to speak until the day that these things shall be performed, 
because thou believest not my words "; and he at once became 
dumb. The Spiritualist more than any other can believe in the 
exercise of such power upon the human organism by a spirit, 
because he is aware of similar manifestations occurring at the 
present day. I myself have known of two instances where the 
power of speech has been temporarily taken away by the spirit 
controlling ; and for a good purpose. 

In the same chapter it is declared that an angel appeared to 
Mary, and promised the birth of Jesus. 



FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITTJALISM. 65 

In the 2nd chapter of Luke it is stated that the angels appeared 
to ihe shepherds hy night (in the dark), and whilst electric glory 
shone around (as we render it), proclaimed " Glory to God in 
the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men." Simi- 
lar lights have been seen and similar words been heard from the 
blessed angels in modern times. 

In the 9th chapter of Luke it is recorded that, as Jesus, John, 
James, and Peter were on the Mount, whilst Jesus was trans- 
figured, '" Behold there talked with him two men, which were 
Moses and Elias." In this connection, permit me to remark 
that one of the charges brought against us as Spiritualists is 
that we are believers in necromancy, and that our mediums are 
all necromancers^ — using the term as an opprobrious epithet. 
Well, we are willing to accept all the opprobrium that can be 
legitimately attached to it. But what does the term necro- 
mancy really mean ? It is derived from two Greek words, — 
nekros (the dead), and manihano (to learn), — learning from the 
dead. Was not Jesus learning from the dead (so called) when 
he was talking with Moses and Elias hundreds of years after 
they had gone to their guerdon in the skies ? May we not be 
willing, then, to accept the epithet which has been awarded us ? 

In the 20th chapter of John, after the crucifixion, the disci- 
ples having assembled together in a chamber, and the doors 
being shut for fear of the Jews, "came Jesus and stood in 
the midst." Here, certainly, was what is now termed materi- 
alization, whether the listener regard the Nazarene as God or 
man ; and it must have been produced through the same law 
brought into exercise in modern times in all cases of genuine 
materializations. For, surely, no one in the present age of en- 
lightenment will assume that even God himself acts outside of 
law. The Biblist believes this testimony of two thousand years 
ago, and yet declines to accept the well nigh overwhelming 
evidence existing today in favor of similar manifestations in 
different parts of the earth. 

In the 3rd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles an account is 



66 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

given of Peter restoring a man who had been lame from birth ; 
and in the 9th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles of Ananias, 
a disciple, restoring Saul to sight by the laying on of hands. 
You have similar manifestations presented every day in your 
midst, and by precisely the same law. Besides, you have clair- 
voyants in your city and at other points who correctly diagnose 
disease without seeing the patient, which is certainly a greater 
evidence of spirit power than that exhibited by Peter. But, 
alas, many who believe in Peter's manifestations are ready to 
prosecute our healing mediums, and tax our inoffensive clair- 
voyants. 

In the 10th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles it is stated 
that, while Peter was on the house top at Joppa, he fell into a 
trance. And in the 22nd chapter Paul declares of himself that, 
while he was praying in the temple, he was in a trance^ — pre- 
cisely the phraseology of modern times, and the fact of trance, 
as occurring among us daily. And in the cases of profound 
trance, occurring in the present day, we have a parallel to the 
raising of Lazarus by Jesus, as recounted in the 11th of John, 
and the raising of Tabitha by Peter, in the 9th of Acts. 

In the 12th chapter of the Acts is an account of the impris- 
onment of Peter by Herod, and of his expected execution. 
While he was in prison an angel visited him, and the result was 
his entrancement, and his liberation without the knowledge of 
his guard. " And when Peter had come to himself " in the 
street, as stated, he proceeded to the " house of Mary, the 
mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were 
gathered together, praying. And as Peter knocked at the door 
of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda. And 
when she knew Peter's voice, she opened not the gate for glad- 
ness, but ran in and told how Peter stood before the gate. 
And they said unto her, thou art mad. But she constantly 
affirmed that it was even so. Then, said they, it is his angel,'^ 
believing that he had already been executed. Now, observe the 
point which I desire to make : if these early Christians who 



FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 67 ' 

were assembled at the house of Mary had not believed it possi- 
ble that the angel or spirit of Peter could rap, would they have 
given utterance to such an exclamation ? In this connection, 
I may state that upon one occasion, in the early history of our 
cause, when the Davenport brothers had been imprisoned for 
the non-payment of the tax for jugglery, their prison doors were 
opened without the agency of human means, and their traveling 
agent, who had been incarcerated with them, walked forth iuto 
the street a free man. The young men refused to avail them- 
selves of the opportunity, however, as they preferred remaining 
for the purpose of testing the question whether in our land of 
professedly religious liberty they would really be taxed for mani- 
festing certain phenomena which, by the mathematics oi facts, 
demonstrate in part, at least, the solid basis ujoon which is reared 
the glorious philosophical and religious faith of millions of our 
fellow-citizens. 

In the 23rd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, in the ac- 
count given in the arraignment of Paul before the council of 
chief priests, the following declaration was made by " the scribes 
that were of the Pharisees' part ": " We find no evil in this man; 
hut if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight 
against God.'' 

Surely this is a satisfactory indication that it was believed in 
the time of the Apostles that spirits could commune with mor- 
tals, and that to attack a mortal thus communing was considered 
as tantamount to fighting against God. If this be true, how 
impious, indeed, are the enemies of Spiritualists and mediums 
today. 

But allow me to present one manifestation more, which 
occurs in the last chapter of Revelation. When John was on 
the Isle of Patmos, and had received the mysteries of the Apoca- 
lypse, the angel through whom they had been received ap- 
proached him. John, psychologized by the materialistic idea 
of the age, when he perceived the brilliant beauty of the angel, 
supposed a personal God was before him, and " fell down to 



68 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

worship before the feet of the angel which showed him these 
things." But the angel said : " See thou do it not ; for I am 
thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets. Wor- 
ship God." Precisely what the spirits, through the various 
phenomena of Spiritualism, are saying today. They are our 
brethren, — the beloved of other years, — members of the same 
great family, who have walked by our sides in the earth life, and 
who have mingled amid the same conditions that now agitate 
and animate our being, — who have journeyed across the Niagara 
of death, but whose affections are still warm toward us, and 
who are seeking to pilot us securely to the bright and beautiful 
shores of another and a better land. 

I have thus given you, my friends, but a few, comparatively, 
of these recorded manifestations of spirit or angelic presence, 
in order that I might establish the analogy claimed to exist 
between those of ancient days and those of modern times ; and 
also to represent how utterly absurd it is to object, upon Biblical 
grounds, to the phenomenal phases of what is termed modern 
Spiritualism. 

In this connection, permit me to call your attention to the 
fact that the larger portion of Christendom practically admit the 
existence of spiritual phenomena, corresponding to those of the 
olden time, recognizing them under the name of miracles, how- 
ever, as was done during the days of Jesus and the Apostles ; 
and likewise requiring their existence under the authority of 
the Church. A learned divine of the Catholic Church,* in 
a discourse upon what are known as the " Miracles at Knock," 
in Ireland, made use of the following remarks : — 

" I would call your attention simply to the views of some 
prominent clergymen of other denominations, as expressed in 
the papers during the past week. In every instance the opin- 
ions of these Protestant gentlemen were, so far as I saw them, 
absolutely childish, and in no way indicative of piety or fairness 
on their part. Not one of them actually knew how to view the 

*Ilev. M. J. O'Farrell, St. Peter's Church, Barclay Street, San Francisco, 



FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 69 

subject, and instead of shedding light upon the matter they com- 
pletely stultified themselves. 

" In their interviews with reporters these gentlemen said, at 
least impliedly, that God could not perform a miracle, and that 
if He could. He would not, or, in other words, they would deny 
to God the very power of working miracles. Now, my brethren, 
that is plainly an absurd position. If Almighty God cannot 
work miracles today, it follows that he never could perform 
them, since he is unchangeable. If these gentlemen that I have 
alluded to had simply said they did not believe that miracles had 
been wrought at Knock, or that there was wanting sufficient 
proof, their position would be tenable and proper ; but when, 
instead, they attribute them to superstition or something worse, 
their arguments cease to have any weight. If miracles were 
possible 1800 years ago, they are possible now, and will be 
to the end of the world. When the Lord told His Apostles 
to raise the dead to life, or to drink poison and not sustain 
injury. He certainly gave to them the power of doing miracles, 
and there is not in existence any authority stating that the 
working of miracles ceased with the Apostles. On the contrary, 
we have miracles performed all through the middle ages and 
the early centuries of the Church." 

To do the gentleman full justice, I should state that he said, 
likewise, in speaking of the Catholic clergy : — 

" While believing in the power of miracles, we cannot accept 
them entirely without convincing proof and upon the authority 
of the Church." 

Surely, this is a practical recognition on the part of the 
representative minds of the largest half of Christendom that, as 
claimed by the spiritual school, the spiritual phenomena of the 
dawn of Christianity are at least possible in the present day. 

The hypothesis assumed by the spiritual school in this con- 
nection is that the laws of nature are uniform, unalterable, and 
eternal ; hence, all the occurrences both of time and eternity, 
whether simple or great, must be in accordance with the har- 
monious action of some law, either known or unknown ; or else 
we must impiously conclude that the economy of this majestic 
universe is incomplete, and who will dare thus to decide ? And, 



70 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

further, as a sequence, that if in the past there was a law in 
existence, by means of which three angels in the form of men 
could commune with Abraham on the plains of Mamre, by 
which Moses and Elias could have conversed with Jesus on 
earth, hundreds of years after they had entered the higher life, 
by which one of his brethren, the prophets, could appear to 
John on the isle of Patmos, and advise him as to the proper 
object of devotion, then that law must still he in existence ; and 
you, my friends, can commune with your brethren, — with your 
departed companions and friends, proportioned and circum- 
scribed only by the relations and conditions with which you may 
be individually surrounded. This, it seems to me, is a logical 
deduction, a legitimate conclusion, from which there is no escape. 
And thus, my friends, I can but decide that those Biblists 
who deny the fact of spirit communion are really undermining 
the very foundation of their own text-book. For, indeed, in 
addition to the facts there recorded, every inspired word of the 
Bible likewise was breathed into man through this glorious 
instrumentality. " The Patriarchs of old conversed with the 
angels through it, — ^ Moses, amid Egyptian sands ; Isaiah, clothed 
in the sublimity of his terrific eloquence ; Jeremiah, out of the 
depths of his wailing lamentations ; Daniel, in the lions' den, or 
surrounded by the splendors of an Eastern court ; David, 
sweeping the chords of his prophetic harp ; the Apostles and 
pioneers of the Christian era," — with all their perfections and 
imperfections, were the recipients of this Pentacostal power, 
which embraces within its influence seraphs and mortals, the 
spheres of Heaven and the orbit of earth. And even He, whose 
birth is said to have been heralded by a star, and his death 
dirge caroled by the mutterings of an earthquake, — He, whose 
words were " logic set on fire by love," disdained not to be the 
recipient of angelic ministrations. And shall we refuse this 
divine beneficence, or decline the advocacy of so glorious a truth ? 
Forbid it, ye bright and beautiful spirits now hovering around 
and about us ; and, oh, carry on your heaven-appointed work 



FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 71 

until the entire race shall have been redeemed from sectarian 
fanaticism on the one hand, and materialistic obstinacy .on the 
other. 

In conclusion, allow me to advert briefly to the fact that the 
student of the Bible can but observe a difference in the tenor 
and manner of the communications to be found within its pages. 
This is, of course, attributable to the conditions and circum- 
stances of the age in which they were written, and the condi- 
tions and circumstances of the different individual channels 
through whom the communications may have come, the law of 
communication or of inspiration remaining intrinsically the same 
in all cases. The pivotal point of the revelation of the Old 
Testament, for instance, was '' an eye for an eye, and a tooth 
for a tooth." The pivotal point of the revelation of the New 
Testament was '' Father, forgive them ; they know not what 
they do." So that the differences alleged to exist in the spirit- 
ual communications of today, and which are urged as an objec- 
tion to Spiritualism of modern times, likewise have their anal- 
ogies in the past ; and if the one system is to be rejected on the 
ground of seeming contradictions, so must the other by the 
same rule of reasoning. 

The pivotal points of modern inspiration are God is love, 
man is immortal. The canon of revelation has not closed. 
With these Spiritualism is before the world. Within a quar- 
ter of a century, so wonderful have been its attractive qualities 
that it has become one of the themes of public thought, — sub- 
ject, alike, to ridicule and to reverence. Which of these two 
sentiments it shall arouse in your bosoms, you yourselves can 
alone determine. For myself, I can truly say that, when first 
I recognized the facts of the perpetuity of individual conscious- 
ness, and of progress beyond the grave, and that the beloved and 
the departed can and do commune with the sorrowing hearts of 
earth, the brilliancy of these consolatory truths shed an illum- 
inating ray over the entire future, both for time and eternity, 
whilst the well of sweet waters in the heart became at once and 



72 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

forever inexhaustible. With what gratitude and joy, therefore, 
does iny soul constantly exclaim, — oh, how 

Brightly breaks this morning light 

Of truth's effulgent ray. 
As, banishing all of former night, 

Is seen the brighter day 
Of man's redemption from the past, 
So long by errors dark o'ercast. 

God's loving angels, firm and true, 

Are whispering to men 
Bright lessons that shall mind renew 

With clearer thoughts again 
Of the simple truths of purity 
That fell from Him of Galilee. 

Of the many marjsions pure and bright, 

Prepared by loving friends ; 
A home of joy, a home of light, 

That unto all extends 
Who seek for truth with honest soul. 
And list the music of control. 

The banishment of earthly fears, — 

The promises of bliss ; 
When dried are ail of sorrow's tears, 

By the magic of love's kiss, — 
The kiss of love the angels give 
To all who trusting truly live. ' 

Earth's bursting bud and blooming flower, 

Just springing into life. 
But picture forth the heavenly dower 

That beams beyond all strife 
vln that land of beauty, home of joy. 
Where mingles none of earth's alloy. 

Angels, bright angels, by their love. 
Would guide your footsteps free 

To a home of joy, a home above, 
Of pure felicity ; 

Where bliss awaits on every hand 

God's children in the Summer-Land. 



LECTURE TV, 



THE PHILOSOPHY OP DEATH. 



If a man die, sliall he lire again ? All the days of my appointed time will I wait 
till my change come. —Job, ch. xiv., v. 14. 

Now, this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. — I Cor., ch. xv., 50. 

The subject matter of this discourse is one of the most mo- 
mentous that man is called upon to investigate and decide upon. 
Not that the physical phenomena of death is in and of itself of 
greater or less importance than other conditions of discomfort 
to which flesh is heir ; but its significance in human estimation 
arises from the important bearing which it is believed to have 
as to the consequences of the past and the prospects of the 
future, — the hopes of time and the possible fruition of eternity. 
And the importance of its philosophical consideration is the 
more enhanced, as I conceive, from the misconceptions enter- 
tained by almost every school of thought with regard to this 
most solemn and interesting event of human experience. 

The materialist, for instance, entertains the cheerless and ter- 
rible belief that death is the end of all individual and conscious 
being ; that when the pulsations of the physical heart and brain 
have ceased, and the body is consigned to its last resting place, 
nothing thereafter remains of the man but ashes, or a formless 
essence that soars away and mingles with the elements ; that 
the glowing hopes and lofty aspirations of humanity are to be- 
come as naught ; and that all man's consciousness of capacities 
for knowledge and happiness which have but just begun to ex- 

(73) 



74 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

pand in the earth life are all cut off by death and buried in the 
grave, thus rendering man the unsolved and hopelessly unsolv- 
able enigma of the universe. 

On the other hand, there are various schools of thought, 
differing somewhat in their details of faith, vi^hich unite in 
rendering man, equally with the materialist, an unsolved and 
unsatisfactory problem, whilst, in the estimation of some, they 
award the race, in an overwhelming majority, even a worse 
fate than that of hopeless annihilation ! A few of the human 
family, they tell us, saved in some mythical manner from the 
general ruin, are to become participants in an alleged joy, the 
nature of which, considered in connection with the divine pos- 
sibilities of the human soul, and the natural pulsings of the 
human heart, amounts to fearful irony on the part of the head 
of the universe ; whilst the destined fate of the majority is in- 
comprehensibly terrible, — a horrible libel upon infinite love 
and infinite wisdom. Think of it for a moment, as condensed 
by another mind, amid fiends and devils, all hope departed, 
all sympathy murdered in self-suffering, all aspiration dead, all 
consciousness absorbed in agony, all senses consolidated in one 
unending pain, all language drowned in one eternal, damned 
shriek, every faculty of being concentrated into an everlasting 
sense of an ever-present hell fire of torture ! And yet this is to 
be the fate of poor, blind, suffering, helpless, yet loving and 
trusting human souls when in the hands of the avenging God 
of the theologians. 

But a more glorious and a more consolatory conception as 
to death and the future of the race — the brighter and more 
truthful as well as more consistent idea of the philosophy of 
Spiritualism — has now dawned upon the darkened conditions 
of bigotry's night. Under the benign influences of this seraph- 
born system, Earth's living heart is beginning to glow with the 
fires of undying love, and even the tomb is growing beautiful 
as the smiles of returning and loving spirits are decorating its 
portals with Eden's deathless bloom, — the bloom and radiance 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 75 

of conscious individuality beyond the grave. This philosophy 
teaches that, in accordance with the known laws of matter, after 
what is called death has occurred, the fluid portions of the phys- 
ical body ascend in the form of vapor, mingling and commin- 
gling again and again with the gorgeous drapery of the clouds, 
and, descending in the raindrop and the dew, become absorbed 
in the undulating beauty of Earth's blue waters, whilst the solid 
portions of the body seeking their kindred atoms are constantly 
passing and repassing through the various forms of life compre- 
hended in the different kingdoms that make up the splendid 
macrocosm of the universe. But the spiritual or real man has 
an individual existence and identity of his own, and, having 
"put off the tabernacle of clay," he seeks a more congenial 
realm where 

"Beyond earth's chilling winds and gloomy tides, 
Beyond death's cloudy portal," 

human loves shall overlive, and human souls can never die. In 
other words, Spiritualism teaches that death, as it is termed, is 
but the termination of the first segment of life, and indicates 
the end of the seed-time of human experience only ; all man's 
budding hopes and lofty aspirations, and the dawning conscious- 
ness of desires for which the earth life has no supply, are but 
the prophecies of a broader field of activities, the swelling germs 
of faculties that are to fructify in another and a brighter world. 
When the phenomenon of death occurs, man immediately leaves 
the body, " which was but the swaddling clothes of his spiritual 
infancy, and rises as from a sleep in perfect human form, with 
all his memories and his consciousness of individual being, to 
enter upon a career of unending progress," in which hope is 
changed to fruition, and aspiration to achievement. Thus, natu- 
ral death, so called, is to the Spiritualist ^/ze grand step of life, a 
part of the divine plan through which man is to attain to the 
highest possibilities of his nature. It solves all the enigmas of 
life ; it is the fulfillment of which this life is but the prophecy ; 
and, according to individual effort and desire amid the condi- 



76 UNAI^SWERABLE LOGIC. 

tions of the future, it opens the portals to eternal joy. Instead 
of shrinking from it, therefore, as his direst enemy, man should 
regard it as his great deliverer and best friend. Nor, indeed, does 
the simple act of death, when produced alone through natural 
causes, when not brought about by violence of any kind, pro- 
duce any immediate change even in the material body. It is 
still composed of the same particles of earthy substances ; the 
eye and ear are the same ; the nerves of motion, of touch, and 
of taste, are all perfect ; the machinery, indeed, is all as com- 
plete as immediately before ceasing its activity. Why, then, 
does it lie so still ? Why cannot this same body assume its 
erect position and answer back the loving smiles of weeping 
friends ? For the reason, as Spiritualism demonstrates, the in- 
telligent motive power is not there ; the man himself, the being 
whom you love, and who still loves you with enhanced affection, 
has departed from this encasement of time, and like all other 
matter uncontrolled it lies an inert mass, unable to love, to think, 
to feel, to act. A change soon commences, however. The 
active, thinking, individualized spirit which gave i^ organization 
having withdrawn, it has no power to resist the forces of nature 
which summon the constituent elements to their duties. Decom- 
position occurs, and these elements, as I have said, mingle again 
with the earths, the metals, and the gases, under new conditions, 
and new formative processes, whilst the man himself hath entered 
into higher joys and nobler purposes. Such is the change called 
death, viewed from the standpoint of the Spiritualist, and such, 
in some sort, it seems to me, was the idea Job designed to con- 
vey in the words of the text repeated in your hearing. " If a 
man die, shall he liveV^ is the correct reading, as the word again 
which occurs in the English version, being printed in italics, 
was supplied by the translators. The patriarch, seemingly sat- 
isfied of the non-existence of the paradoxical proposition which 
he thus presents, adds : "All the days of my appointed time 
will I wait until my change come," — - as if he had said, as it 
appears to my mind, knowing that there can be no death or 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 77 

extinction to life once established, I will patiently await the 
change which cometh to all. 

But, if the body be considered as the man, — which atheism 
teaches, and which the other schools of thought to which I have 
referred have done but little to controvert, — how terrible, 
indeed, the event termed death ! Or if, as is asserted by some, 
the inert and rapidly decaying physical frame shall be needed 
hereafter to complete the man of the future, still how terrible 
the phenomenon, and how utterly un philosophical such a solu- 
tion of the melancholy problem ! And I do not wonder that 
death is looked upon with so much horror by any class of mind 
entertaining such faint conceptions of the principles of life, and 
of the true existence of the real or spiritual man. On the other 
hand, if, as I have said Spiritualism teaches, the spirit be 
regarded as the real man, there is no change of form but for 
improvement, and no loss of consciousness necessarily from the 
event of which I am speaking. To the Spiritualist, indeed, 
there is no death, so fully convinced is he that the human soul 
is indestructible, and that its progressive activities will continue 
forever. The departure of a friend through this means is to 
the Spiritualist like that of the sun, as it seemingly sets in 
night below the rose-tinted horizon of the west, — he knows 
that it has in reality gone to diffuse its light elsewhere, so that, 
even while sinking in apparent darkness, it is still the same sun. 
Oh, how true 

" There is no death. This pulsing heart of mine 
May cease to beat, the soul-lit eye to shine ; 
And from the body go the fleeting breath, 
And yet the risen spirit know no death. 

There is no death. This clod of mortal clay 
May lose its form through nature's sure decay ; 
But the freed spirit in realms supernal 
Solves life's mystery, — the life eternal." 

Yes, the same eye sparkles with increased affection, though 
the external covering is laid aside forever, and the same ear is 



78 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

sensitive to the tiniest call for sympathy and love ; the same 
face beams with a more unselfish devotion, and the same dear 
lips whisper confidingly to your inner self; the same hands 
minister more efficiently to your real wants, and the same arms 
reach out more lovingly for your support ; the same heart beats 
with a more abiding love, and the same life throbs in and 
through their inmost being with a stronger pulse thau when you 
were separated therefrom by a double covering of clay. True, 
you may not see them with the natural eye, but then you never 
saw them, only the " muddy mask " they wore was visible to the 
material sight. Our friends who may have passed through the 
ordeal termed death have simply thrown off this mask of time. 
By-and-bye, God's pale angel shall remove our mask likewise ; 
and then we shall see, " not as with a glass, darkly," but we 
shall see as we are seen, and shall know as we are known. 

These consolatory reflections are the legitimate outgrowth of 
the fundamental propositions of the spiritual school, which are 
based upon indisputable facts, — these facts having clearly 
demonstrated the existence of distinct spiritual substance, and a 
real substantial spiritual world, together with the fact that man 
is essentially a spiritual being, possessed of a spiritual organi- 
zation, with spiritual senses, adapted to spiritual objects, as em- 
phatically as the external senses are to material objects ; and 
that the physical body, which we place in the grave when 
the phenomenon termed death has occurred, is no part of the 
man, but simply the sustaining basis of those spiritual sub- 
stances of which the more refined body within is formed. In 
fine, that the intelligent principle, or soul, encased within this 
refined spiritual body, constitutes the man himself, — the real 
man of thought and feeling, who survives unharmed his sepa- 
ration from the earthly encasement, and not some formless 
essence or unsubstantial ghost, as too many have been taught to 
believe. 

It is a sad commentary upon the teachings of dogmatic 
theology, and upon the faith engendered thereby, that among 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEA-TH. 79 

no peoples inhabiting this round globe upon which we dwell is 
there to be found such fearful apprehension, such terrible dread 
of the visitations of God's pale angel called death, as is manifested 
throughout Christendom. So much so that he has been termed 
the relentless " shadow, cloaked from head to foot, which keeps 
the keys of all the creeds." Whilst, on the other hand, the 
Spiritualist is taught to look forward to '' the stroke of death as 
but a kindly frost, which cracks the shell and leaves the kernel 
room to germinate." In Christendom there seems to be a con- 
tinuous and fearful looking forward to the final dissolution 
awaiting all humanity ; whilst the Spiritualists, from the force 
of indisputable and appreciable facts, are becoming more and 
more fully satisfied of this great truth in the economy of the 
universe that 

"There is no death; what seems so is transition; 

This life of mortal breath, 
Is but a suburb of the life-elysium, 
Whose portal we c«?Z death." 

This prevalent gloom in Christendom in regard to a process 
which is as strictly in accordance with the laws of nature as is 
life itself is clearly attributable to the teachings of dogmatic 
theology, both in the past and in the present. For centuries 
Christendom has been taught to believe literally that the great 
God of the universe created Adam and Eve of the dust of the 
earth, and placed them innocent and pure in a garden which He 
had "planted eastward in Eden "; that this pair were the parents 
of all the different races now upon the face of the earth ; that 
the devil or Satan came, no one knows from whence, and, in 
the form of a serpent, tempted these alleged progenitors of 
the races into sin ; and that the consequences of this inexplic- 
able sin fell upon, all humanity throughout all time, — or, as 
doubtless some of the elder members of my audience recollect, 
some of the theological j)oet3 were accustomed to announce this 
dogma within the past quarter of a century : — 



80 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 



That Eve aud Adam knowledge were pursuing ; 
His fearful vengeance at them all He hurled, 
And for their disobedience cursed the world." 

This fable of the original temptation has given rise, likewise, 
to other effusions equally absurd, which in many cases evinces a 
total disrespect for woman, in consequence of an unquestioned 
reliance upon the letter of Genesis. I will give but one speci- 
men : — 

" When Beelzebub first to make mischief began, 
He the woman attacked, and she gulled the poor man; 
This Moses asserts, and from hence we infer 
That woman rules man, and the devil rales her.'' 

Prior to this assumed "fall of man," it has been taught, like- 
wise, that the human race was immortal in this life ; that, 
although God had designed man to live forever, being thwarted 
by the devil. He doomed him and all his posterity to physical 
and spiritual death, from which the race could only escape 
through a vicarious atonement afterwards provided. To the 
promulgation and acceptance of this dogma, presumably, is to 
be attributed the torturing fear of death peculiar to Christen- 
dom, to which I have referred. On the present occasion, I 
apprehend, there is no necessity to offer any arguments drawn 
from the natural composition of the human body, for the pur- 
pose of combating this position of theology, as to death having 
been produced by the Fall, since it must be self-evident to every 
intelligent mind that all the elements and their compounds in 
the human body must necessarily obey the same laws that 
govern them elsewhere in nature, and are subject to the same 
changes continuously in growth, maturity, and decay. But allow 
me to advert briefly to the absurd conclusions necessarily conse- 
quent upon such views regarding the origin of death as have 
been demonstrated by numerical calculation, thus, — • scientists 
agree in the declaration that the human race would double itself 
every twenty-five years but for the continuous recurrence of 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 81 

what is termed death. Thus calculating, at the end of the first 
one hundred years, after the alleged creation of Adam and Eve, 
there would have been sixteen persons in existence ; in two hun- 
dred years there would have bee'n two hundred and fifty-six per- 
sons in existence ; and in less than eight hundred years there, 
would have been more than twice the number of people now living 
on the earth. Continuing at this rate of increase, vci fifteen hun- 
dred years only, there would have been in existence eight hun- 
dred and fifty-seven quadrillions^ eight hundred and two trillions, 
nine hundred and eighty-six billions, four hundred and ninety-two 
millions, ninety-two thousand, and four hundred and sixteen per- 
sons (857,802,986,492,092,416). Estimating the inhabitants 
of the earth at thirteen hundred millions, which is a low estimate, 
at the end of fifteen hundred years, at the rate named, there 
would have been about six hundred and sixty millions times as 
many people living as are now upon the globe. This is a suffi- 
cient number, after allowing one person to every square inch of 
the earth's surface, including land and water, to furnish as many 
inhabitants as we now have to each of the fifty-three millions of 
planets as large as our own. Hence, it is apparent that, if God 
originally intended human beings to live forever upon this 
planet, and in their natural bodies, as has been taught for cen- 
turies. He certainly could not at the same time have designed 
through natural processes the vast accumulation of human 
beings that must have lived upon the earth during the last six 
thousand years. With no intention of irreverence as to Deity, 
or disregard for the sublimity and beauty of truth, may I not 
be allowed the remark, to what monstrous absurdities do such 
teachings lead when carried out to their legitimate conclusions! 
Is it not, therefore, in view of the facts adverted to, a legitimate 
and rational inference that death (so called) was not sent upon 
the earth as a punishment for sin as has been taught ? — indeed, 
that its real cause is not even due to disease, but that in the opera- 
tions of divine economy it is a necessity from both the nature of 
matter and the nature of spirit. And this view of the subject, it 



82 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

seems to me, should disrobe the departure of a soul from the body, 
through the process termed death, of all the imaginary terrors 
with which it has been clothed in Christendom, whilst it like- 
wise engenders juster conceptions as to the comparative value 
of spiritual and material things. For, indeed, there is no dying 
principle in nature, — throughout all is unmixed life. "The 
sun sets and rises," says a modern author;"^ "the stars sink 
beneath the horizon and return again, and all the spheres con- 
tinue in their circling dance. Every hour brought forward by 
them, every morning and every evening, sinks with new increase 
to the world ; new life and new love thrill from the spheres as 
the dew drops trickle from the clouds, and embrace nature as the 
cool night does the earth. All death in nature is birth ; and at 
the moment of death appears visible the rising of life." This is 
evidently true of impersonal and unintelligent matter. How 
much more essentially true is it of the aspiring soul of the race, 
standing as man does upon the apex of all created things, — the 
epitome, physically, of all that has gone before him, — spiritually, 
the prophecy of all that is to come after him. 

Again, in regard to the opinion of St. Paul as to the impos- 
sibility of flesh and blood inheriting the conditions of a future 
spiritual state of existence. It has been taught for many cen- 
turies in Christendom that Jesus of Nazareth, after his death 
and burial, arose from the grave with his fleshly body, the same 
that was tortured upon Calvary ; and that he afterwards as- 
cended into Heaven, clothed with the same earthly form. This 
belief, as you readily perceive, is founded upon the teachings of 
an age and of a people not given to philosophic research, and in 
almost entire ignorance of the truths of science; a people who 
seemed to arrive at conclusions touching surrounding phenomena 
through a superstitious dread of the unknown and the unfamiliar, 
without stopping to inquire as to causes, and in utter disregard 
of any process of logical deduction from fundamental truths or 
first principles. And, notwithstanding the wonderful develop- 

*richte. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 83 

ments of the present century in science and philosophy, and the 
consequent enlargement of the human understanding as to the 
seemingly incomprehensible, together with a loftier and clearer 
conception of the spiritual truths of the age touching the nature 
and office of the human soul as well as the laws and character 
of matter, still this superstition prevails to such an extent that 
a considerable number in Christian lands yet subscribe to the 
dogma of a material resurrection. To this idea Spiritualism is 
diametrically opposed, esteeming it at war with reason and com- 
mon sense, because contradictory to the known facts of science 
and the truths of nature, as illustrated by its own unmistakable 
phenomena, whilst it is at the same time equally at war with 
the declaration of St. Paul to the Corinthians that " flesh and 
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth cor- 
ruption inherit incorruption." 

The spiritual philosophy tells us, as I understand its teach- 
ings, that the body of man was originally elaborated from the 
rocks, and that through the intervening kingdoms of nature has 
attained its present advanced condition in its progress toward 
perfection in the sphere of conformation. And, further, that 
from past erroneous inoculation, the mind of Christendom is too 
much accustomed to conceive the origin of man to have been 
the result of an especially miraculous event of some six thou- 
sand years ago, unmindful of the fact that God's mode of opera- 
tion throughout the wide-spread universe is one of perpetual 
creation, so to speak, or rather the continuous elaboration of 
the higher from the lower conditions. In other words, the 
presence of the Infinite author of being is forever made known 
to the truly philosophic observer by unceasing additions to all 
that has been, through continuous changes in all that is. If this 
world which we inhabit had been formed of some impenetrable 
and unalterable substance, subject to no mutability of form or 
vicissitude of circumstance, reference might be had with some 
degree of plausibility to its supposed creation originally as a spe- 
cific manifestation of deific power. But, argues an able writer : 



84 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

" When all forms are changing-, transitory, and incessantly dis- 
solving from their original outlines, so that nothing remains im- 
mutable but God's conception of being, which the whole universe 
is hastening to realize, we cannot escape the conviction of his im- 
mediate, living, omnipotent, constructive agency. The truth is, 
we are being hourly and momentarily created, and it is impos- 
sible to imagine in what respect the first act of creative power, 
whenever that may be supposed to have been, was more won- 
derful or glorious, or afforded any more conspicuous display oi 
omnipotent wisdom than that august procession of phenomena 
by which man and the living world are being continuously 
called into being." 

The body of man, science tells us, instead of being the theater 
of a mysterious power which defies investigation, is a system act- 
ing in obedience to invariable laws, and entirely amenable to 
investigation ; and, too, that its decay, decomposition, and death 
constitute immediate agencies of creative energy in the ever- 
changing realm of matter. This material body, as you know, 
when the phenomenon of death occurs, decomposes, and settles 
back into its original elements. These elements, as already 
stated, become diffused and blended again into other combina- 
tions ; and this process, by the unvarying laws of matter, con- 
tinues ad infinitum. These elements are divided into metallic 
and non-metallic substances. Eighty per cent of the body is 
water, and a considerable proportion is composed of and returns 
to gases, leaving but a small amount of mineral residuum. The 
ultimate materials of the average human body, according to Dr. 
Lardner, are fourteen pounds of charcoal, ten pounds of lime, 
one hundred and twenty pounds of water, and fourteen pounds 
of the gases which form air and water, that is, oxygen, nitrogen, 
and hydrogen. As an instance of how readily all semblance of 
the human body may be obliterated, and the elements composing 
the same diffused into other combinations and other avenues of 
operation, it is related that a gentleman of devoted affection, 
adopting the ancient Roman method of burning the body after 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 85 

death, a method commended by many in the present day, and 
certainly approved of by myself, succeeded in condensing and 
reducing the mineral remains of his departed wife by repeated 
processes of incineration until they were contained in a locket, 
which he wore on his finger. Again, the victims of bigotry 
burned at the stake, and the many who have been devoured by 
cannibals and wild beasts, furnish additional instances of the irre- 
mediable distribution of the component particles of the fragile 
tenement in which we dwell, — the elements composing these 
bodies, through fire, flame, and smoke in the first instance, and 
through assimilation and excretion in the last, necessarily be- 
coming diffused and interblended a thousand and a thousand 
times, perhaps, in the various and multiplied modes and degrees 
that make up the life-line of individual and collective existence. 
In the light of these facts, how monstrously absurd, therefore, 
is the idea that these miserable bodies of ours are necessary in 
a future world for the identification of the individual, as is taught 
through the dogma adverted to in contravention of St. Paul's 
declaration to the Corinthians by the advocates of a material 
resurrection ; or, as taught by the atheistical school, that the 
brain of man is the mind of man. The faith inculcated by the 
former affords but a remote hope of isimortality after the scenes 
of earth have faded away, the latter denies the existence of man 
beyond the grave altogether. The great questions of the age, 
therefore, in connection with the theme of my discourse, ques- 
tions as yet unsolved by either dogmatic theology or material- 
istic teachings to the satisfaction of the inquiring mind of today, 
may be stated as follows : " Is the thinking principle in man, 
the soul or spirit, a distinct individual entity ? Or is it an unde- 
fined and indefinite something, incapable of identity or activity 
when separated from the physical body ? Or, again, is it the 
result of the material organization ? If the last-named pro- 
position be true, as asserted by the atheist, the idea of immor- 
tality is the merest fable imaginable. If the proposition named 
secondly be true, as practically taught by theology, in its abso- 



86 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

lute rejection of the spiritual facts of today, then the important 
question at issue is but half solved, at least, and man's destiny 
still but a labyrinth of doubt. But, if the first proposition be 
true, as declared by the spiritual school, namely, that the think- 
ing principle or inner potency is the spiritual or real man, with 
an individual identity of his own, which survives the dissolution 
of the material body, then, indeed, must the foregone and gloomy 
conclusions of Christendom in regard to the subject matter of 
death be utterly abandoned, whilst to the relieved conscious- 
ness of humanity, under such a change of sentiment, this grand 
old earth, with all its appliances and experiences, becomes much 
more beautiful and fair, with the heavens far brighter and more 
inviting than ever before. Then must faith give place to knowl- 
edge, and doubt succumb to demonstration ; for a new era has 
dawned for humanity ; an era so brilliant and glorious in its 
influences that even the shadowy pathway of the olden time 
catches an illuminating ray. If the phenomenal and philo- 
sophical claims of Spiritualism be true, then it is no fable, but a 
possible fact in nature that Peter's prison doors yielded to un- 
seen hands, and that the " still, small voice " from the inner life 
cheered the heart of the prophet at Horeb ; then, indeed, need 
it no longer be doubted that the spirit of the departed fellow- 
servant of John spoke to him upon Patmos, or that three angels 
in the form of men conversed with the patriarch upon the plains 
of Mamre. Indeed, the grand truths of Spiritualism, in con- 
nection with life, death, and the possible destiny of the soul, 
cast a lengthened light upon all the experiences of the past, gives 
a brilliancy and beauty to the present, and sheds an unwonted 
effulgence over the entire pathways of the unexplored y>/^?/re. 
And that these declarations of the spiritual school are true is 
clearly established by the privilege of spirit intercourse enjoyed 
by those who with earnest and prayerful intent have investi- 
gated the phenomena of the age, — - phenomena which, if fully 
appreciated, entirely overthrow all the preconceived and iudeii- 
nite ideas of Christendom in regard to the solemn event termed 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 87 

death, as I have said, by unmistakably establishing the imme- 
diate conscious identity of the beloved and departed in the higher 
life without the intervention of the earthly incumbrances of flesh 
and blood, thus realizing the force of the Apostle's declaration 
repeated in your hearing, as well as the conception of the patri- 
arch, as I understand it, that the term death is a misnomer, 
its occurrence being but a change of conditions, for which he 
expresses himself as willing to wait. Yes, this glorious privi- 
lege of spirit communion has come to man with gentle and 
peaceful influences, with positive and blessed assurances of 
immortality, with a knowledge so full and clear that the human 
heart can well nigh realize the happy associations and radiant 
homes to which the departed ones of earth have gone. 

And, further, this bright evidence of personal identity and 
conscious individuality beyond the grave, presented through the 
facts of Spiritualism, — let bigotry and skepticism say what they 
may, — forms no unimportant chapter in human experience ; no 
unimportant epoch in the history of human hopes and human 
happiness. True, the doctrine of immortality has been taught 
in Christendom for centuries ; but it has been inculcated as a 
theory merely, independent of demonstration, independent of 
any practical appreciation of such facts as those of which I 
have been speaking. So much has this been the case, and so 
ill-appreciated have been the ideas of individual identity and 
individual progress beyond the grave, that the clouds of doubt 
and superstition are still hanging heavily and darkly along the 
mental horizon of Christendom, as they have done for centu- 
ries, whilst the realities of the future have become a matter of 
slavish fear rather than of passive and happy anticipation. 
And hence the dismal and funereal preparations everywhere 
exhibited whenever a soul is born into the higher life through 
the process so sadly misnamed death. But when the glorious 
truths of Spiritualism are brought within the grasp of the mind, 
through the aid of the undeniable facts of which I have been 
speaking ; and when, through these facts man learns that the 



88 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

future is but a continuation of the spiritual part of this life, and 
that when called to leave the conditions of time he only throws 
off the customs of life, and not life itself, changing only to a 
higher sphere, and a broader field, where all his nobler purposes 
and diviner possibilities may be fully realized in the progress 
of the years, he then begins to recognize some purpose in his 
making, and that he himself is to be the voluntary executor of 
God's will, in the practical exercise of the immortal faculties 
of his diviner nature, — not only as a disembodied spirit in the 
future, but likewise as an embodied spirit in time. For the 
same law in this respect, the good spirits tell us, regulates both 
spheres of being. Man, as a spirit, working through the outer 
form, may make every step here an advance toward the beau- 
tiful and true in the hereafter, since high aspirations and noble 
duties, with holy loves, are admittedly the true life of the soul 
everywhere. And thus the philosophy and religion of Spirit- 
ualism, as I understand it, perpetually aad strictly enjoins that a 
beautiful and virtuous present is the sure guarantee of a health- 
ful and happy future. 

Again, when Leverrier perceived that there were irregularities 
in the motions of the planets of the solar system which could 
not be accounted for by any known laws of planetary motion, he 
inferred, we are told, that there must be another planet, unknown 
to astronomers, and that after many calculations and much obser- 
vation he told them where to look for it. Pointing their tele-' 
scopes to the spot, they found it, according to his prediction. 
Applying the same principle to man and his relations, says an able 
writer : " When you sfee the perturbations and conflict between 
the spiritual and material conditions of this life, all analogy would 
lead to the conclusion that there must be some cause beyond 
this life, some sphere above this, to the laws of which man is 
subject, and that this conflict with matter, and this struggle for 
freedom, is due to grander harmonies, bidding him look to that 
higher sphere for the solution of these earthly anomalies, and 
for the true home of the soul." 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 89 

In conclusion, Spiritualism teaches that the infinite source of 
all life, the great God of the majestic universe in which we 
dwell, is as imminent in spirit as in space ; that he is near to 
the human soul as is matter to the sense, and upon this divine 
presence in the soul of man the Spiritualist confidently relies, 
whether amid the tortuous pathways of earthly existence or the 
untried realities of the future upon which he is destined to 
enter through the misnamed portal of death. Hence, when 
through organic law he is called from time to eternity — 

" Night dews fall not more gently to the ground, 
Nor weary, worn out winds expire more soft." 

And, still, more than all others, is the Spiritualist cheered 
along the journey of earthly experiences through the instru- 
mentality of the glorious phenomena upon which his entire 
system rests, as through this agency the beloved of other years 
who have preceded him to yon bright shore are in some sense 
constantly assuring him that 

"They who are lost to outward sense 

Have but thrown off their robes of clay, 
And clothed in heavenly radiance 

Attend us on our lonely way; 
And oft their spirits breathe on ours 

The hope, and strength, and love of theirs, 
Which bloom as bloom the early flowers, 

In breath of summer's viewless airs ; 
And silent aspirations start. 

In promptings of their purer thought, 
Which gently lead the troubled heart 

To joys not even hope had sought. 

Though sorrow brings her hidden good, 

And tears their dewy benison, 
Not always o'er the spirit should 

Their darkness hide away the sun. 
The rain whose blessed coming nursed 

The sweetest flowers of blushing spring, 
If through its cloud no sun had burst. 

Would blight her loveliest blossoming. 



90 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

'T is well the heart can loose its tide, 

And gently pour the soothing tear, 
When joyful hope is crucified 

In death pangs of the loved and dear ; 
But when from the sepulchral prison 

Her angels roll the stone away. 
Then yield we to the new arisen, 

And own her everlasting sway. 

With spirit glance, undimmed by tears, 
Look upward and forget the clod, 

Tor brighter than yon million spheres 
They wheel around the throne of God; 

And echoes from the choral song- 
Come quivering down the blue expanse, 

Like murmurs from the insect throng 
That on the beams of sunset dance. 

Then why should bitter tears be shed 
In sorrow o'er the mounded sod? 

When, verily, there are no dead 
Of all the children of our God." 



LECTURE V. 

WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL, 
TESTED BY THE ACCEPTED BITLES OF PHTLOSOPHIC IKQTJIRY. 

•' O man, thou art heir of the universe forever! 

Por neither congelation of the grave, nor gulping waters of the fir- 
mament, 

Nor expansive airs of Heaven, nor dissipative fires of Gehenna, 

Nor rust of rest, nor wear, nor waste, nor loss, nor chance, nor 
change 

Shall avail to quench or overwhelm the spark of divinity within thee ! 

Tliou art an imperishable leaf on the evergreen hay-tree of existence^ 

A word from wisdom's mouth that cannot he unspoken; 

A ray of love's own light ; a drop in mercy's sea ; 

A creature marvelous and fearful, begotten by the fiat of Omnipotence ! 

I that speak in weakness, and ye that hear in charity. 

Shall not cease to live and feel, though flesh must see corruption; 

For the prison gates of matter shall be broken, and the shackled 

soul go free, — 
Free, for good or ill, to satisfy its appetence forever." 

Not long since I sat as one of a cultured and intelligent 
audience in one of our largest cities, and listened to a discourse 
from an admittedly learned clergyman,* — a minister of the 
Free Religionist school, also, — who closed his remarks upon 
the nature and destiny of man with this declaration : " What 
lies beyond the veil we Icnoto notH^ And I could but think, if 
this be so, if learned ecclesiastics, after the teachings for eight- 

*Ilev. Wm. R. Alger, July, 1871. (91) 



92 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

een hundred years of dogmatic theology upon the subject of 
immortality can make such a declaration, surely it is time that 
some higher truth touching eschatological conceptions were 
more generally made known. And I could but deplore the fact 
that the popular mind, swayed by the prejudices engendered 
through sectarian education, has so long and so generally 
ignored the facts and the philosophy of Spiritualism with its 
grand and ennobling conceptions as to the nature and destiny 
of the human soul. The more especially as this glorious sys- 
tem has been so emphatically and undoubtedly proved to be not 
the mere ephemeral superstition charged by its opponents, but 
a theme of the highest ethical and philosophical importance ; a 
system which takes up man's conceptions of the future where 
ecclesiasticism leaves them, and carries them on to a more prac- 
tical apprehension of the vast possibilities of a life eternal, — • 
whilst it likewise establishes a satisfactory and consolatory rec- 
ognition of probable beatitudes beyond the veil which intervenes 
between the outer and the inner world. Hence, my present 
discourse, in the hope of aiding some little as to higher and 
more logical conceptions of the nature and character of the 
human soul, and its ultimate destiny beyond the grave. 

" The convinced understanding," says Mr. Davis, " speaks 
as one having authority." Recognizing this as a truth, it is to 
your understanding and not to your sympathies that I desire to 
address myself. Nor shall I aim, by any sensational or ad 
captandem mode of argument, to stir the depths of your feel- 
ings : but, on the contrary, I propose appealing to your reason, 
through accepted methods of inquiry, with the hope of estab- 
lishing in the minds of my hearers a more complete realization 
of the broad and comprehensive claims of the glorious cause of 
which I am the willing advocate. 

True, it may be said that Spiritualism had its original incep- 
tion through the longings of the human heart after the beloved 
and the departed, whom the race has been told for centuries in 
Christendom had gone to an 



WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL. \)6 

"Undiscovered country, from whose bourne 
No traveler returns." 

Nevertheless, this glorious system, does not rely alone upon an 
appeal to the affections for its maintenance in human conscious- 
ness. Men and women of the clearest intellect and wisest fore- 
thought mark the progress of this movement, and it claims to 
be able to satisfy the judgment of the scholar, the statesman, 
and the jurist. As a science and a philosophy it is being meas- 
ured and defined, and the best thinkers realize that it grows 
brighter, and broader, and more intensely profound the more 
earnestly and searchingly the investigation is pursued. Spirit- 
ualism, therefore, as I understand it, is before the world not 
only as a religion appealing to our highest and holiest emotions, 
but as the grandest scientific fact in nature, and as a philosophic 
truth boundless in its apprehensions as is the universe of thought. 

Death, we are told by the Church, entered into this world of 
ours through sin ; that but for the sin of Adam and Eve there 
would have been no death, and man would have remained upon 
the earth immortal, as a physical being ; that all the terrible 
consequences taught by orthodox theology are likewise the 
result of this assumed primal disobedience. Hence, that physical 
death in this world fixes the fate of man forever, either for weal 
or woe. 

To these ecclesiastical dogmas and their corollaries Spiritual- 
ism stands diametrically opposed. It teaches, on the contrary, 
that physical death is as natural as physical life ; that the one 
is the legitimate sequence of the other, in accordance with the 
known laws of matter ; that death and decomposition appertain 
alone to the physical body ; that the real man, after the envi- 
ronment of clay has been laid aside, lives on, the same individu- 
alized, spiritual entity, the same being precisely as before he 
left, save alone the outer covering of the material body ; that 
he enters into the next sphere of being the creature, as here, of 
an eternal law of progress, the benefits of which may be en- 



94 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

hanced or detracted from, proportioned to individual effort and 

desire. Indeed, that 

"The stroke of death 
Is but the kindly frost that cracks the shell, 
And leaves the kernel room to germinate." 

And in advocacy of these and other ideas of the spiritual 
school, so essentially opposed to the teachings of the popular 
theology of the centuries as to " what lies beyond the veil," I 
propose to test their reliability by the accepted rules of philo- 
sophic inquiry. 

And, as a starting point, allow me to recall the memory of 
my audience to the fundamental declaration of mental philoso- 
phy that, in applying the mind to the investigation of any phe- 
nomena in any department of knowledge, it should always be 
recollected that there are certain intuitive articles of belief that 
lie at the foundation of all reasoning, and that these are termed 
first truths ; that these first truths, it is declared, are not the 
result of any process of reasoning, but force themselves, with 
the consciousness of infallible certainty, upon every sound un- 
derstanding, independent of its habits or powers of induction ; 
that the force of these first truths is felt, in a greater or less 
degree, by all classes of mind, and are acted upon with the most 
absolute confidence in all the ramifications of thought and 
action. These first truths are briefly as follows : — 

First, Man has a conviction of his own existence as a sen- 
tient and thinking being, and of an intelligent principle within 
him, as something disconnected with the functions of the bodily 
form. 

Second. Man has a confidence in the evidence of his senses, 
in regard to the existence and properties of external things ; 
or a conviction that they have a real existence, independent of 
his sensations. 

Third. Man has confidence in his own mental process ; that 
facts, for instance, which are suggested to him by his memory 
really occurred. 



WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL. 95 

Fourth. Man has a belief in his own identity. 

Fifth. Man has a consciousness that every event must have 
a cause, and that every cause must be adequate to the effect ; 
and, further, that appearances showing a correct adaptation of 
means to an end indicate design and intelligence in the cause. 

Sixth. Man has an instinctive confidence in the uniformity 
of nature. 

This enumeration, more at length, exists in the books as 
first truths, and are deemed intuitive principles of belief that 
admit of no other evidence than an appeal to the consciousness 
of every man that he does and must believe them. 

In proceeding from these first or intuitive articles of belief 
to the further investigation of what is truth, philosophy points 
out also various mental processes as necessary in the operation. 
These are enumerated as follows : — 

First. To make a careful collection of facts relating to any 
given subject, and to abstain from deducing any conclusions 
until you have before you such a series as will warrant your 
doing the same. 

Second. To separate from the mass those facts that are con- 
nected therewith incidentally, and to retain those only that you 
have reason to consider uniform and essential. 

Third. To compare facts with each other, so as to trace their 
resemblances, or to ascertain those characteristics or properties 
in which a certain number of facts or substances agree. 

Fourth. To compare facts or events with each other, in 
order to trace their relations and sequences, and especially that 
relation of uniform sequence upon which is founded the notion 
of cause and effect. 

Fifth. To review an extensive collection of facts, so as to 
discover some general fact common to the whole. This process 
philosophy terms generalizing, or the induction of a general 
principle. 

When this induction is made, from a full examination of all 
the individual cases to which the general fact is meant to apply, 



96 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

and actually does apply to them all, then, the best philosophical 
writers affirm, the investigator has truth. 

And, now, before proceeding in a delineation of the ethical 
teachings of Spiritualism, permit me to inquire, has not the 
philosophic Spiritualist in his investigations as to the reliability 
of the fundamental propositions and basic foundations of his 
system pursued the same in strict conformity with the universally 
accepted rules of philosophical inquiry just enumerated ? And 
shall his conclusions, simply because they are not in harmony 
with the ecclesiastical dogmas of Christendom, be rejected and 
denounced, in total violation of every known rule of logical 
deduction? Has he not complied with every injunction, and 
followed every direction laid down as to the process of correct 
and legitimate reasoning ? The phenomena of Spiritualism con- 
stitute a wonderful array of facts, — ^each separate fact apply- 
ing directly to the general fact of the identity of individual 
spirit, through unmistakable and intelligent communion. He 
has collated these facts and compared them, the one with the 
other, so as to trace their resemblance and ascertain the charac- 
ters and properties in which they agree. He has separated 
from his mass of facts such as seem connected but incidentally 
with the subject of investigation, and retained only those which 
he has reason to consider uniform and essential. He has com- 
pared these uniform and essential facts so as to ascertain their 
relations and sequences, and especially that relation of uniform 
sequence upon which is founded the idea of cause and effect ; 
and by this prescribed process he has deduced an unmistakable 
general fact, — the glorious truth underlying the sadly misunder- 
stood and grossly misrepresented system of Spiritualism, — the 
fundamental fact of the continuity of individual consciousness and 
individual 'progress heyond the grave. 

Surely, then, by this legitimate process of reasoning, and in 
accordance with the declaration of the best philosophical writers, 
the Spiritualist may be said to have arrived at the demonstra- 
tion of a great truth touching man's relation to the spirit world. 



WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL. 97 

which constitutes the legitimate basis of a system of religion, or 
of ethical reform, unequaled in its scientific data, and in its 
philosophical deductions by any other as yet known to the 
aspiring soul of the race. I claim, therefore, that Spiritual- 
ism is an established form not of faith but of verification ; and 
that, upon available testimony, the Spiritualist, unlike the clergy- 
man alluded to in the commencement of my discourse, does 
know something of " what lies beyond the veil." 

Some of the philosophical and consolatory items deducible 
from the glorious facts adverted to, and which are recognized 
as true by most intelligent Spiritualists, have been enumerated 
as follows : — 

That man has a spiritual as well as corporeal nature ; in 
other words, that the real man is a spirit, which spirit has an 
organized form, composed of spiritual substance, with parts and 
organs corresponding to those of the corporeal body. 

That man as an individualized spirit is immortal. Being 
proven by existing facts to survive the change called physical 
death, it is reasonably inferred that he will survive all future 
vicissitudes. 

That there is a spiritual world, or state, with its substantial 
realities, objective as well as subjective. 

That the process of physical death in no way essentially 
transforms the mental constitution or the moral character of 
those who experience it, else it would destroy their identity. 

That happiness or suffering in the spiritual state, as in this, 
depends not on arbitrary decree or special provision, but on 
individual character, individual aspiration, and degrees of indi- 
vidual harmonization ; or, in other words, on personal conform- 
ity to universal and divine law. 

Hence, that the experiences and attainments of the earth life 
lay the foundation on which the next commences. 

That since growth or progress is the ]aw of the human being 
in this life, and since the process termed death is in fact but a 
hirth into another condition of life, retaining all the advantages 



98 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

gained by the experiences of this, it may be legitimately inferred 
that growth, development, expansion, or progression is the end- 
less destiny of the human spirit. 

That the spirit world is not far off, but near, around, and 
interblended with our present state of existence ; and, hence, 
that we are constantly under the cognizance of spiritual beings. 

That, as individuals are continually passing from the earthly 
to the spiritual state in all stages of mental and moral growth, 
that state necessarily includes all grades of character, from the 
lowest to the highest. 

That happiness and misery depend on internal states rather 
than on external surroundings ; and, hence, there are as many 
gradations of each as there are shades of character, each one grav- 
itating to his own place by the natural law of affinity, thus ren- 
dering the spirit world practically "a house of many mansions." 

That communications from the spirit world, whether by men- 
tal impression, inspiration, or any other mode of transmission, 
are not necessarily infallihle truth ; but, on the contrary, partake 
unavoidably of the imperfections of the minds from which they 
emanate, and of the channels through which they come, and 
are moreover liable to misinterpretation by those to whom they 
are addressed. 

Hence, that no inspired communication, in this or any other 
age, is authoritative any further than it expresses truth to .the 
individual consciousness, — for soul-consciousness is the highest 
and final standard to w^hich all inspired or spiritual teachings 
must be brought for judgment. 

That inspiration, or influx of ideas and promptings from the 
spiritual realm do not constitute a miracle of a past or of the 
present age, but 2i perpetual fact, — the ceaseless method of the 
divine economy for human elevation. 

That all angelic and all (so called) demoniac beings which 
have manifested themselves, or interposed in human affairs, 
either in the past or present, were and are simply disembodied 
human spirits in different grades of development. 



WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL. 99 

That all (so called) authentic miracles in the past, such as 
the raising of the apparently dead, the healing of the sick by 
the laying on of hands or other simple means, unharmed con- 
tact with poisons, the movement of physical olDJects without 
visible instrumentality, etc., were produced necessarily in har- 
mony with universal laws ; and hence, as these laws are uniform 
and eternal in their operation, may be repeated at any time 
under suitable conditions. 

That the causes of all phenomena, as well as the sources of 
all power, of all life, and of all intelligence, are to be found 
alone in the internal or spiritual realm, and not in the external 
or material world. 

That the chain of causation leads inevitably to a creative 
spirit, who must be not only b, fount of life or love, but likewise 
a forming principle or wisdom, thus sustaining the dual parental 
relations of father and mother to all finite intelligences, who, of 
course, are all brethren. 

That man, as the offspring of this infinite source, is in some 
sense the image or finite embodiment of the same ; and that, 
by virtue of this parentage, each human being is, or has, in his 
inmost a germ of divinity, an incorruptible offshoot of the divine 
essence, which is ever prompting to the good and right ; and 
which, in time or in eternity, will free itself from all imperfec- 
tions incident to a rudimental or earthly condition, and finally 
triumph over evil. 

That all evil is disharmony, in a greater or less degree, with 
this divine principle ; and, hence, whatever prompts and aids 
man to bring his external nature into subjection to, and har- 
mony vvdth, the divine in his own soul is a " means of salvation " 
from evil. 

In addition to these philosophical and ethical deductions, 
drawn from the fundamental facts of Spiritualism, so clearly 
established, as I have shown, I claim further that this glori- 
ous system is not only a religion, in the sense of continually cul- 
tivating the higher aspirations of the soul, and tending to the 



100 UNANSWERABLE LOaiC. 

elevation of man iuto closer harmony perpetually with the 
good, the true, and the beautiful in the universe, thereby point- 
ing unmistakably to the infinite soul of the same as the only 
true object of worship, as well as constituting a correct system 
of philosophy, in that it consists of both facts and ideas which 
wonderfully harmonize, and with unerring precision mutually 
sustain each other. I claim further, I repeat, that Spiritualism 
is likewise unmistakably a science, aye, the all-comprehensive 
science of the sciences. Astronomy, for instance, tells of revolv- 
ing worlds, and will measure for you their orbits ; but Spirit- 
ualism tells you why those worlds are there, and what is the des- 
tiny of their denizens. Material science demonstrates facts relat- 
ing to matter, together with its wonderful and varied changes, 
proceeding from cause to effect with unerring precision ; but 
Spiritualism tells you of loftier and deeper truths, such as relate 
to the primal cause of all causes,— the Infinite hand that makes 
no mistakes and leaves no blurred lines upon the face of nature. 
Material science confines itself mainly to one object of interest, 
— the glory of external things ; and. this is well as far as it goes, 
for external things are the outward manifestations of interior 
potencies ; but Spiritualism deals directly with these potencies, 
aye, with the soul of things. Hence, the inference is legitimate 
that the cultured minds of the age, especially, have wholly mis- 
apprehended this grand and glorious system oi facts and induc- 
tion, or Spiritualism would ere this have become the recognized 
religion of the age. And this is the most plausible, as well as 
the most charitable, conclusion to be arrived at, as we consider 
the plane of mental activities characteristic of the age in which 
we live. We see men and women giving forth the light of 
intellect, the force of feeling, and operating effectively in the 
different pathways of intellectual and moral development. We 
see sparks of genius illuminating the paths of literature in well 
nigh every direction, — sparks unmistakably emitted through 
contact with brighter minds, either consciously or otherwise ; 
and yet the recipients and promulgators of these higher thoughts 



WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL. 101 

seem utterly oblivious to the fact that no mind acts wholly inde- 
pendent of other minds, that all higher thought is born in brighter 
realms, — and that, as Spiritualism teaches, the spirit world, 
impinging naturally upon the material, all minds are in more or 
less direct communion with all other minds, although the world's 
broad graveyards lie between. In other words, this glorious 
system of religio-philosophical truth teaches that inspiration is 
universal, — proportioned in expression to individual receptivity 
and organic capability, — that all thought, if God be infinite, 
must, in some sense, be God's thought ; that the spirits of our 
beloved and departed ones, through organic law, have become 
the ministers of this divine beneficence to this the primary 
department of life; and that all men and women, even the 
wisest, are passing through the educational processes incidental 
to time, preparatory to joining the collegiate class in the grand 
academy of the bright and beautiful hereafter. Why, then, 
should there be such opposition to Spiritualism, especially among 
the cultured and refined, except, as I have said, from ignorance 
of its transcendent merits as a factor in human development. 
Unless, alas, -it is a fact, even in this the 19th century, that 
there are still remaining those who love the honey-comb of popu- 
larity (although generated through ignorance) better than they 
do the ever-living principles of truth and progress. 

Again, the wonderful array of facts to which I have referred 
as constituting the phenomena of Spiritualism, together with the 
legitimate conclusions deduced therefrom in accordance with 
established rules of philosophic inquiry, as I have shown unmis- 
takably demonstrate the great fact of the perpetuity of individ- 
ual consciousness beyond the grave. But this is not all of Spirit- 
ualism. This important fact is but a cardinal feature in a 
grand system of philosophy, of science, and of religion, which 
shall yet bless the world beyond all present capability of appre- 
ciation, — a system admirably calculated to expand the intellect, 
enlarge the affections, and elevate the entire nature, by con- 
tinuously increasing knowledge touching the spirit world and 



102 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

its inhabitants, by more and more comprehensive views of God, 
the great Father of spirits, by still advancing ideas as to the 
relations of both mind and matter, together with all that is 
or may be known as to the hidden forces of the majestic universe 
which we inhabit, which are essentially spiritual in their nature. 
There are no authoritarians in Spiritualism. Any man or woman 
occupying the position of teacher can but give his or her own 
experiences, deduced from whatever application they may have 
individually made of the one great fact of a demonstrated im- 
mortality ; and the listener can only be benefited by what is 
presented, in so far as that experience may be adapted to his 
own individual soul needs. Spiritualism, therefore, is in this 
sense an individual matter, conveying the idea that the descent 
of the New Jerusalem to earth must be through the shekinah 
of the individual soul. And yet, at the same time, so broad and 
universal in their application are the corollaries legitimately 
deducible from the basic fact of Spiritualism that this glorious 
religion may truthfully claim to teach all that is written in the 
moral constitution and spiritual needs of the entire race. 

Hence, a mere belief that spirits can communicate with mor- 
tals does not constitute Spiritualism in the broad acceptation of 
the term, although he who thus believes is in a limited sense 
called a Spiritualist. The day is passing by when any peculiar 
merit attaches to a mere readiness to believe ; when a doubting 
disposition is esteemed a bad one, and skepticism a sin. Eccle- 
siasticism can no longer practically enforce the dogma that, 
when authority has once declared what is to be believed, and 
faith has accepted it, reason has no further duty to perform. 
On the contrary, if I apprehend the term aright, Spiritualism 
absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority as such. With the 
true Spiritualist, as with the scientist, a judicious skepticism is 
the highest of duties, and blind faith the one unpardonable 
sin. He perceives, with Prof. Huxley, that "every advance in 
knowledge throughout the past, even in religion itself, has in- 
volved the absolute rejection of authority, the cherishing of the 



WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL. 103 

keenest skepticism, and the entire annihilation of the spirit of 
blind faith." And, hence, he ever holds his convictions of today 
open to the demonstrations of tomorrow, and believes in '"'justi- 
fication, not by faith, but alone through verification.'^ 

Spiritualism, thus defined, you may readily conceive, cannot 
be confined by the restrictions of a fixed creed, or bounded by 
the dogmatic limitations of an arbitrary organization. Other 
ages and other systems have given birth to creeds and dogmas 
to which we fear truth has been too often subordinated. The 
glorious mission and privilege of Spiritualism is to elevate the 
light of divine truth above the plane of dogmatism, and to inau- 
gurate it upon the altar of the human heart. The Spiritualist, 
according to his individual conception of right, is cultivating 
God's image in his soul, through an ever increasing practical 
appreciation of the good, the true, and the beautiful, in and 
around him. He is taught, and gratefully accepts the teaching, 
that he has not been forgotten by an Infinite Father, because the 
orthodox church of the day refuses him its countenance ; and 
that, by right of inheritance from this infinite source, there is a 
broad and deep devotional element in his nature which is none 
the less pure from not flowing through prescribed channels. 
He no longer relies upon either council or creed, church or 
book, as the last infallible guide to truth, but reposes trustingly 
for time and for eternity upon infinite love and eternal law. If 
faithful to angelic promptings, the constant effort of the true 
Spiritualist will be toward the quickening and expanding of his 
spiritual nature, to the end that all defects of the physical 
may become subordinated, and all inharmonious and misdirected 
affections overcome, through obedience to the higher law en- 
stamped upon his inner and better nature, — thus gradually 
substituting " the fruits of the spirit " for the " works of the 
flesh "; and in this wise, trusting to be redeemed from the errors 
of the past and the misdirections of the present, he is being 
consciously prepared for that the future may unfold. The prin- 
ciple of action characteristic of Spiritualism, as I have previously 



104 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

said, is love. This constitutes the whole of its creed, if creed 
it may be called. It promises nothing to faith, nothing even 
to works, exclusively, but everything to fitness, purity, good- 
ness, uprightness, justice, and mercj*. It makes no arbitrary 
distinctions among men, but leaves each to choose from his or 
her own natural tendencies his or her own place in the eternal 
world, the moral qualifications of each determining the result. 
It teaches, in fine, that it is a monstrous absurdity and a libel- 
lous assumption to declare that Deity could possibly sacrifice a 
single finite soul merely for the glory of Deity ; that the Infinite 
asks obedience to no law but the law of man's own nature, of 
which man himself is to be the executor here and hereafter. 
And, hence, contrary to the position of the theologian to whom 
I referred in the commencement of my remarks, the Spiritualist 
certainly knows something in regard to " what lies beyond the 
veil! ^' For, indeed, the many facts of Spiritualism, entering 
as I have shown in the one general fact of the perpetuity of 
individual consciousness beyond the grave, together with the 
glorious system of ethical philosophy legitimately deducible 
herefrom, are certainly replete with consolatory intelligence for 
the weary souls of the race, — weary, oh, so weary from long 
stumbling in the tortuous pathways of theological speculation. 
Ecclesiasticism admits itself ignorant of "what lies beyond the 
veil "; and, indeed, as a consequence of this ignorance, judging 
from the gloomy countenances engendered by orthodox Chris- 
tianity, one might suppose that the dead-march was sounding 
up and down the aisles of our broad green earth continually, at 
the instance of some terrible self-constituted demon of destruc- 
tion. But the great truths of Spiritualism have pierced through 
this hitherto impenetrable veil, and have satisfactorily answered 
the important question of the centuries : " i/" a man die, shall 
he live again ? " The doctrine of immortal life, to the analytical 
mind, hitherto shrouded in doubt, now receives practical illus- 
tration. Much that was speculation becomes matter of fact, and 
faith is confirmed by knowledge. Verily, to the spiritual phi- 



WHAT LIES BEYOKD THE VEIL. 105 

losopher death has lost its sting, the grave its victory. Oh, theo, 
let us 

" Talk no more of death as fearful ; 
Call it not a chilling stream; 
Thoughts of death should make us cheerful, 
For it leads to joys supreme. 

Call not death a mouster cruel, 

Whom no prayers or tears can move, 
If it take from us some jewel 

To the starry spheres above. 

There they'll shine with growing luster. 

Brighter for their second birth, 
And we'ZZ join that radiant cluster 

When death takes us from the earth. 

Fear not death, then; 'tis but changing 

From this world to higher spheres, 
Where our spirits, ever ranging, 

Shall progress through countless years." 



LECTURE VT. 

THE FINAL RESURRECTION. 

I CorintMans, ch. xv., v. 44.— There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual 
Dody. 

The glorious system of philosophical truths which may be 
said to constitute, likewise, the ethics of Spiritualism, and which 
is based upon the fundamental fact of a demonstrated immor- 
tality, through direct communion with the spirits of the 
departed children of time, is inculcating, I sincerely believe, 
higher conceptions as to the capability, duty, and destiny of man 
than any other ever conceived in the entire range of human or 
angelic thought. It is inculcating, also, higher conceptions of 
the infinite purposes comprehended in the law of evolution as 
made manifest in this green-browed earth of ours, the patient 
"mother of the whirlwind and the storm"; higher conceptions, 
likewise, as to an indefinable primal cause of all causes, forever 
working in the majestic realm of the universe, through infinite 
agencies toward infinite results; an all-wise incomprehensible 
Father of all, who plants in the seasons and in the elements, 
and in all the revolutions of nature, unmistakable signs and 
symbols of beneficence and power which are forever telling us 

that 

"All matter is God's tongue! 
And from its motions God's thoughts are sung ; 
The realms of space are the octave bars, 
And the music notes are the suns and stars." 

The progress of Spiritualism in human appreciation has been 
continuous, beautiful, and sure, notwithstanding the fact that 

(106) 



THE FINAL RESURRECTION. 107 

the bigoted and uninformed have periodically claimed for more 
than a quarter of a century that the whole matter is exploded 
and dead. And in this connection I may remark, in passing, 
that the most recent effort at exposing the phenomenal phases 
of Spiritualism was attempted during the past week in our city 
by a rather handsome and gentlemanly looking young man, 
who advertises under the name of Mr. Stuart Cumberland, of 
England. This young gentleman, whether acknowledgedly so or 
not, undoubtedly possesses clairvoyant and psychometric pow- 
ers, by means of which he gives certain manifestations similar 
to those witnessed in the presence of some of our mediums, 
whilst his mind-reading exhibits the same phenomena as were 
given by Mr. Chauncey Barnes a few years since, whom, doubt- 
less, some of the Spiritualists remember. He claims that these 
gifts are natural, and that they are exercised independent of 
necessary aid from departed spirits. This is a claim that Spirit- 
ualism itself has insisted upon for the last quarter of a century, 
and that these powers in and of themselves only prove that man 
is an individualized spirit while yet within the body. But Mr. 
Cumberland failed to manifest any interior power beyond that 
of sight and magnetic mental sympathy with those by whom he 
was immediately surrounded. He failed to give any evidences 
of identity on the part of departed friends whose names he clair- 
voyantly read, and notably gave not a word of intelligence for- 
eign to the minds by whom he was surrounded, — all of which 
our spirit mediums have done in thousands of instances, and are 
still doing today. 

Again, this young gentleman possesses a wonderful physical 
conformation, — a body similar to double-jointed contortionists 
who are sometimes seen in the circus ring, — which enables him 
to perform several feats when securely tied, which are entirely 
beyond the ability of ordinarily formed persons under the same 
conditions. He also has the power common to such persons of 
disjointing his toes and fingers, and thus producing sounds 
which he claims are the same as those heard at spiritual seances ; 



108 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

claiming, too, that the assumed spirit raps are produced in the 
same manner. These claims may be satisfactory and gratifying 
to clergymen and other inexperienced and prejudiced persons, 
but to the judicious observer, and particularly to the experienced 
Spiritualist, such claims are extremely absurd and altogether 
untenable, especially so when reference is had to the fund of 
intelligence foreign to all persons visibly present, which has 
been so often received in the presence of our rapping mediums. 
This is the distinguishing feature of spirit raps, never yet 
attained by the whole army of mountebanks and charlatans who 
have so often been received into the embrace of the occupants 
of the pulpit and the conductors of the press of our country, 
with the hope of overthrowing a great fact in nature, simply 
because it is not in accordance with their own preconceived ideas. 

This young gentleman, therefore, I doubt not, is doomed 
eventually to the same oblivion that has visited the numerous 
professed exposers of Spiritualism who have fruitlessl}^ strutted 
a brief career of arrogance at different times for the last thirty 
years, whilst the great fact of spirit communion still remains 
untarnished, and still cheers the heart of the honest seeker after 
truth. 

And thus, as autumn after autumn, and age after age, the 
innocent night wears still the precious jewel of the harvest 
moon upon her brow, and its soft effulgence overflows the 
world, clothing it in heavenly splendor, whether mortals care 
to observe it or not, so the mental night of atheistical doubt 
and fanatical incredulity is being most surely illuminated by the 
brilliancy of spiritual truth, although the majority of mankind 
still close their eyes to this glorious light of all the centuries. 
And upon no one error, perhaps, has tiiis light fallen with 
greater effulgence than upon the theme of my present discourse. 

The idea of a future resurrection in some form and in some 
manner connects itself more or less directly with the motives, 
the feelings, and the actions of mankind, of well nigh every 
shade of belief; and with a brilliant or a somber hue to a very 



THE FINAL RESURRECTION". 109 

great extent colors all their lives. In Christendom, although 
claiming to be the most enlightened portion of the globe upon 
which we dwell, the strangest absurdities and inconsistencies 
have obtained in connection with the doctrine of a resurrection. 
As the general mind has continued to advance, however, under 
the influence of the progressive spirit of successive ages, the 
Church, both Catholic and Protestant, has always found it diffi- 
cult to reconcile or explain away its views, and in some instances 
she has entirely abandoned preconceived opinions. At one 
period in her history the doctrine was maintained that exactly 
the same body deposited in the ground would be eventually 
raised ; and some, even in the present day, entertain this mon- 
strous belief. But to the thinker, certainly, this doctrine in- 
volves insuperable objections, including the renewal of all phys- 
ical deformities and infirmities. Besides, many persons die, as 
it is termed, in old age, after the beauty and vigor of the adult 
have faded away, or after the body has become emaciated with 
disease, or crushed and mangled by the casualties of an earthly 
existence. And yet, again, martyrs have been burned at the 
stake, and missionaries have been devoured by cannibals, tde 
different component particles of the original bodies becoming 
necessarily diffused through vegetable, animal, and human 
bodies innumerable. And Omnipotence itself, it will scarcely 
be denied, would find it impossible to incorporate into one body 
the various particles of matter that naturally and necessarily 
belong to numerous other organisms, and yet have them all 
complete and perfect in their original forms. 

Again, others have maintained that every particle of matter 
that ever belonged to the body of an individual during an 
earthly existence is incorporated into the same body at the res- 
urrection. This, likewise, is an extremely absurd idea, since it 
could but make monsters of every adult member of the human 
family upon their entrance into another life, — and more espe- 
cially of those who had lived to old age in this. Allowing the 
elements of the body to be renewed every seven years (and 



110 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

they are known to be renewed much oftener), a man who weighed 
one hundred and fifty pounds, and lived to be seventy or eighty 
years of age, would weigh twelve or fifteen hundred pounds at 
his resurrection ; and the venerable Methuselah, if the story of 
his longevity be true, it has been estimated, would have weighed 
nearly ten tons when he entered the realm that is reputed to 
be ethereal. 

To avoid such absurdities as naturally attach themselves to 
the idea of a material resurrection, some have suggested the 
theory that only the chemical elements of the body that is buried, 
such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc., are to be incorporated 
into the body that is raised. But the difficulty with all these 
theories is that they present only a material body at last, what- 
ever imaginary perfection it may be supposed to possess ; and 
a material body is necessarily subject, in a greater or less degree, 
to all the disabilities of matter, and must, to some extent, 
hold the man to the physical plane. Hence, it must be admit- 
ted that all such doctrines, wherever originating or existing, 
unmistakably tend to the veriest materialism. It is certainly 
evident that gross matter cannot be changed to spirit. If 
such a change is possible, as is claimed by some, then (argues 
an able writer) it is true that there can be a spiritual body ; 
and if there can be a spiritual body, what use at all is there for 
a material body at the . resurrection ? The fact is that such 
inexplicable difficulties and absurdities cluster around this doc- 
trine of a material resurrection that its advocates sooner or 
later fall back upon the ancient refuge of bigotry, — that " all 
things are possible with God," a declaration so wholly mis- 
applied that for centuries it has checked investigation, and 
materially retarded the progress of human thought. And yet, 
strange to say, the very book from whence the advocates of the 
resurrection of the physical body profess to derive their doc- 
trine most emphatically declares in the words of my text " thern 
is a natural body, and there is a spiritual hody.^^ 

Besides, the nature of matter itself furnishes a forcible arsju- 



THE FINAL RESURRECTION. Ill 

ment against the duration and immortality of the material body. 
Both science and observation tell us that no material form can 
retain its organization independent of some interior force. Mat- 
ter has no form, indeed, of its own, and is, in itself, compara- 
tively dead. All material organizations in the plant, the animal, 
and the human, science teaches, are formed and maintained 
through special forces, which serve to counteract the general laws 
to which matter is subject, and through which it is constantly 
tendins: toward elemental conditions. The substances which 
compose the human body, chemistry declares, are continually 
passing away, and are being continuously renewed. The phys- 
ical form, however, Spiritualism teaches, is preserved for a se- 
ries of years by the vital and attractive force within. The soul 
or immortal principle, through law, seizes and appropriates the 
new material from the food and from the elements, — thus sup- 
plying the vacant places of the effete particles which are being 
constantly thrown off, and maintaining by this process its exter- 
nal image in this outer world. Through disease, and in old age, 
as the counteracting laws which look to final dissolution become 
more and more operative, the soul becomes less and less able to 
preserve continuous vigor in the aggregated particles that make 
up its external covering ; and eventually what is called death 
and decomposition occurs. During this entire process the expe- 
rience of us all clearly illustrates the fact that the inner or 
spiritual man is constantly limited in his faculties and restrained 
in his manifestations by the physical body. From infancy to 
the departure of the spirit from its material encasement, the war- 
fare continues between the mortal and the immortal. From the 
first childish effort at walking to the loftiest culmination of soul- 
thought that ever illuminated the globe the body still holds the 
spirit to earth, still dims the vision, and checks aspiring hope. 
Sometimes the soul seems to have gained control over the body,, 
but the limit of its capacities, or rather the limit of its outer 
capability of expression, is soon reached ; and then its power to 
manifest the aspiring thought and deepening feeling continually 



112 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

diminishes. And, how terrible, indeed, would be the condition 
of this intelligent source of vitality and thought — the inner or 
real man — if there were never to be a release from this en- 
vironment of clay. This residence in an earthly body, however, 
as designed, stimulates and develops the spiritual faculties for 
the future activities of a higher life, and in manifold ways is 
useful for the time being. The bodily organs, in their healthy 
state, are said to act as checks or limitations upon the opera- 
tions of the spirit somewhat as the balance wheel of a watch 
checks and regulates the uncoiling of the spring. The balance 
wheel causes the w^atch to move in time. The limitations 
of the bodily organs compel the soul, more or less, to act 
with reference to the conditions of time, — with reference to 
those experiences which, however disagreeable they may be 
deemed, are the educational processes which the benevolent and 
Infinite Schoolmaster has provided for the individualization 
and education of the children of earth ; and as preparatory for 
a practical appreciation of the higher duties that await them in 
the collegiate department of the inner life, when the burden of 
clay has been thrown aside forever. 

The doctrine commonly entertained by dogmatic theology 
practically regards the material body as the man, possessed of 
some vital principle or indefinite motive power, which it desig- 
nates as spirit, of which the human mind can form no concep- 
tion. Spiritualism, on the contrary, regards the spirit as the 
man, having a material body, designed alone for the purposes 
of the earth life. Again, these teachers tell us in their creeds 
that at the resurrection the material body is raised from the 
grave; that the spirit is brought back from some undefined 
region where it has dwelt during its separation from the body, 
that it re-enters it and becomes its life. In contradistinction to 
this idea Spiritualism teaches that the resurrection consists in 
the withdrawal from the material body, and introduction into 
the spiritual world of the man himself. Again, theology declares 
that the resurrection of the material body is to take place at 



THE FINAL EESURRECTION. 113 

some distant period at the end of the world. In lieu of which 
doctrine Spiritualism teaches that the resurrection takes place 
immediately after death, or rather that the death of the phys- 
ical body is caused by the resurrection of the man from it. 
These, briefly stated, are the points of difference between the 
legends of the past and the teachings of Spiritualism upon this 
important subject. The faith of our opponents is founded upon 
erroneous conceptions, as I conceive, of the alleged truths of 
the past, whilst the convictions of the Spiritualist, in consonance 
with a true interpretation of the past, are based upon the expe- 
riences of the present, through well-attested and unmistakable 
facts. Through the influence of the former many faithful but 
mistaken children of humanity are clothing themselves with 
funeral mantles, and with aching hearts are looking down into 
the graves for the loved and lost, as they are mistakenly called, 
with the remote prospect, perhaps, of a reunion at some far future 
day, through the merits of the world's exemplar, with but little 
reference to their own individual deserts. The Spiritualist, on 
the other hand, confident of conditions adapted to his needs, and 
buoyed up by unmistakable facts, is cheerfully looking upward 
and outward, through the shining portals of organic law, to an 
immediate reception by his beloved when his own resurrection 
shall transplant him likewise upon the bright shores of another 
and happier sphere. 

As I have previously said. Spiritualism teaches that the spir- 
itual man is the real man, and that he receives nothing of his 
absolute self from the material body, not even his form. The 
spiritual idea of an immediate resurrection which I have given 
is therefore a legitimate sequence of this fact. A large class, 
however, as shown, stand opposed to these facts, and mainly, it 
is alleged, upon Biblical grounds, but certainly without warrant, 
as I shall attempt to prove. 

The original Greek word translated resurrection in the Bible 
now in use in Christendom has no such meaning as that gen- 
erally given to the English word resurrection, — that of raising 



114 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

up to life again in this world, at some distant day, or at the end 
of time. This Greek word is anastasis, and it means, according 
to Rev. Chauncey Giles, an accomplished scholar, " a continuance 
of existence after the death of the body," " the future life of those 
called dead." A distinguished gentleman/'^ in a sermon delivered 
in New Haven upon the subject of the resurrection very forcibly 
says : " This word anastasis is commonly but often erroneously 
translated resurrection. So far as I have observed, it usually de- 
notes our existence beyond the grave. Many passages of Script- 
ure would have been rendered more intelligible, and the thoughts 
contained in them more just and impressive, had this word been 
translated agreeable to its real meaning." This is certainly most 
decided testimony in favor of the spiritual idea touching the doc- 
trine of the resurrection, as well as acceptable proof that the 
Bible, properly interpreted, teaches a more beautiful and truthful 
philosophy in regard to man and his destiny than the mistaken 
conceptions of orthodox theology have attributed to it. And, 
further, it is undoubtedly true that the more critically and ex- 
haustively all the passages in the Bible relating to this subject 
are examined the more fully will they be found to confirm the 
declaration of the spiritual school that the resurrection consists 
in the withdrawal of the ma7i himself from the physical body 
through the process termed death and his immediate introduction 
into the spiritual world. 

Again, independent of what may be said in the Bible, if the 
mind unprejudicedly investigates this matter, it will be found 
that reason, in addition to angelic communications, sustains the 
position assumed. So, likewise, do the analogies of nature, that 
great bible written by God throughout all the departments of 
the universe, the revelations of which are indelibly indented in 
the rocks, thundered by the ocean in all its varied forms of 
sublimity and terror, exhaled by the flowers, whispered in the 
rippling streamlet, and murmured in the impressive psalmody 
of the forest, that noblest of volumes which we can but admire 

*Ilev. Dr. Dwight, a confessedly learned Biblist. 



THE FINAL RESURRECTION. 115 

even when we cannot understand, — which needs not the sanc- 
tion of councils or the approval of bishops to render it canon- 
ical. Indeed, nature is full of the most beautiful examples, 
analogous to man's true resurrection. The rough, coarse calyx, 
to borrow a figure, is as a body to the soul of the plant, in 
winter. The blossom is only the swaddling clothes of the real 
plant, the seed containing the life. And so man, in the earth 
life, is but the bud of what he will be. By and by, when, 
through the process of death and decay, the external shell or 
covering shall have lost its usefulness, the immortal plant shall 
bloom and fructify in a more congenial realm. But, adds the 
able author alluded to, the analogies are still more striking in 
insect and animal life. The beautiful butterfly, for instance, 
has found its anastasis through the natural law of change, inci- 
dental to the growth and progress of its undeveloped original, 
and can never again return to the chrysalis. The delicate 
humming-bird, with its exquisite plumage and wonderfully 
rapid movement, once recognized the horizon and boundary of 
its universe in the tiniest of eggs. But the law of progress is 
inevitable, and evolution the continuous pathway of the universe. 
The humming-bird finds its anastasis in a world of adaptation, 
an atmosphere of perfume and of flowers, and can never again 
inhabit the egg. Man, being essentially spiritual and immortal, 
finds his anastasis by passing out of the material body into a 
more congenial realm, his true and proper home, and can never 
again animate his worn-out ten^^ment of time. He attains a 
resurrection for his material body when he is born into this 
world, and a resurrection for his spiritual body, his glorious 
anastasis, when he is born into the world of spirits, through the 
agency of what is called death, the misappreciated but univer- 
sally benevolent accoucheur of all aspiring souls. Indeed, all 
nature bespeaks some such glorious consummation to the hopes 
and aspirations of the human soul. Under infinite power and 
infinite will, associated with infinite love and infinite wisdom, 
we find intelligent force and inert matter waltzing hand in hand. 



116 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC 

so to speak, throughout the vast halls of the universe, and to- 
day are as vigorous and active, seemingly, as they have been for 
millions of years. And can we believe that the Divine Author 
and ruler of all will thus keep the atom and neglect the somZ? 
That Divine Intelligence will thus impeach and stultify itself 
in the future by ignoring the noble and aspiring hopes im- 
planted in the intelligent spirit of the race ? We cannot so dis- 
regard the indelible premonitions unmistakably apparent in the 
divine revelations of nature. Just as surely as the acorn fore- 
tells the unfolding of the future life and beauty of the oak, so 
likewise does the human soul in time, with all its wonderfully 
aspiring and expanding powers, foretell its own unending life, 
its own continued growth, its own increasing beauty and glory 
in the boundless domain of the hereafter, toward which human 
hopes unceasingly point, and of which human aspiration is the 
living prophecy. 

And, further, in this connection, the soul or spirit being an 
emanation from, and an individualized finite expression of, the 
great Father Spirit, as a necessary sequence, this individualized 
soul, prior to its anastasis, occupies, in a finite sense, of course, 
the same relative position in the microcosm of the human body 
— the epitome of creation — that the infinite soul occupies in 
the grand macrocosm of the entire body of the universe. The 
universe owes its continued existence in the realm of manifesta- 
tion to an all-pervading divine principle, distinct from matter 
as cause from effect, — which we call God. So the material 
human body without the soul, after the soul has found its anas- 
tasis, has no life in and of itself. " The active, plastic principle 
is the soul, — the true man, — of which the body is but the exter- 
nal expression, and the instrument "; and this soul, as the facts 
of Spiritualism prove, is an individualized entity. 

If, then, the spirit or soul is the man, as is demonstrated by 
the phenomena of Spiritualism, the analogies of nature further 
indicate the necessity for, and all the laws of nature imperiously 
demand, the death or dissolution of the physical body, and the 



THE FINAL RESUERF:CTI0N. 117 

resurrection of the man therefrom into another and more spirit- 
ual realm. When the resurrection is accomplished, our departed 
ones tell us, man finds himself first among those he has loved 
the best, and by whom he has been beloved in time, — the dear 
ones who may have preceded him in the lengthened pathway of 
the spheres. And, oh, what a consolatory and illuminating reflec- 
tion is this, — to feel, as the night of time approaches, and we 
are about to launch our bark upon the silent river, that we 
shall not be alone, — that the loved of other years, our darlings 
gone before, are hovering near to welcome us ; and that, almost 
at the very moment we close our material eyes to the tears of 
earthly friendship, our spirit vision will be open to the welcom- 
'ing smiles of those precious ones inhabiting the higher and 
brighter life. That our loved ones who have gone before are 
near us in the last trying moment of earthly existence has been 
beautifully exemplified in instances reported in the daily press 
of celestial music, vocal and instrumental, being distinctly heard 
immediately above the couch of the dying. And what a sweet con- 
solation indeed must such a fact be to those who are left behind? 
After a kindly and satisfactory reception by friends, occurring 
as it does through the law of emotional attraction, has had its 
legitimate influences, the soul gradually gravitates to just such 
moral and intellectual associations as the experiences and activi- 
ties of earth life have fitted it for. Such have all the bodily 
organs that they had before their resurrection ; they see and hear 
as in the earth life ; have memory, love, hope, fear ; they reason, 
desire, reflect, form opinions and express them ; indeed, are the 
same beings they were before, except in that they have thrown 
aside the '• muddy vesture of decay," and will, for a longer or 
shorter period, necessarily be subject to the relative and tempo- 
rary effects of their earthly masquerading. In fine, the spirit 
world being here, as Spiritualism teaches, and man an individual- 
ized spirit in the human form, when the resurrection takes place, 
when he rises from the body, as described, into the next sphere 
of existence, stands there a complete human being, — having left 



118 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

nothing behind him, as I have said, but his former material 
covering. 

There are many persons, doubtless, who are willing to accept 
these declarations of the spiritual school as true in the abstract, 
but who practically deny the same by ignoring the facts of 
Spiritualism, — which facts are satisfactorily demonstrating to 
the candid investigator that man, as a spirit, is possessed of all 
those qualities which constitute personal being and individual 
identity. This rejection of evident facts is mainly attributable 
to the psychological influences of past educational processes. 
The mistaken theories of the past and of the present with regard 
to the human soul and its destiny have inculcated the idea, as I 
have said, that the mind or soul exists, after what is termed 
death has taken place, as a formless essence or unsubstantial 
something, of which no definite conception can be had, destined 
to await a reunion with the material body at some future period, 
before its personal identity can be realized or recognized. The 
soul has thus, indeed, as remarks a modern author, been reduced 
to something like a mathematical point, which, as you know, is 
defined to be position without magnitude, and which is about as 
near to nothing as the mind can conceive. Hence the wide- 
spread skepticism in Christendom in regard to the existence of 
the soul at all ; and the sad uncertainty, even among professed 
believers in immortality, as to its future powers and destiny. 
If man, after his resurrection, becomes what is practically taught 
in Christendom it would be impossible that he should know him- 
self, much less be recognized by others. The word identity 
means sameness ; and if you do not enter the spirit spheres in 
the same spiritual form that you possess here, you yourselves 
will never enter there. But your inner self, say our departed 
but returning friends, is more essential to identity in your future 
home than is " the outer form. Your affections, knowledge, 
experience, and memory, your entire character, as intellectual, 
moral, and emotional beings must be preserved, or your iden- 
tity is lost. For all the laws of life, as well as the analogies of 



THE FINAL KESTJRRECTION. 119 

nature, clearly indicate that the true resurrection introduces man 
into the world of spirits the same being he was here, whether 
his goodness be shrouded by badness, or his badness be shrouded 
by goodness. 

Spiritualism further teaches that infinite love through infinite 
law has fully provided for the improvement and ultimate hap- 
piness of all souls thus born into spirit life ; and in this partic- 
ular, likewise, are its inculcations at variance with, and superior 
to, the authoritative teachings of orthodox theology. It is esti- 
mated that thirty-six millions of the human family pass through 
the change called death annually. This is three millions per 
month, and one hundred thousand per day. The greater num- 
ber of these are, or have been, weak and ignorant ; or, as 
theological soul-critics would term them, wicked. None, cer- 
tainly, have sufficient goodness to render them fit residents 
of the perfect heaven of which we have heard ; and just as 
surely all have too much goodness to warrant their consign- 
ment to the horrible hell of barbaric fabrication. They can- 
not be changed instantaneously into beings fitted for either place 
— supposing these places to have an existence — without de- 
stroying their identity, and contravening all the known laws 
of mind. Hence, these horrible dogmas of the past, with their 
kindred conceptions, are rapidly fading from recognition, let 
us hope, as the reading and the thinking public are increasing 
in numerical strength, and are taking position in the great battle 
of ideas, in advance of those who have too long had their read- 
ing and their thinking done for them. But, in such a dilemma 
as to the future of the race, even human benevolence (suggests 
a recent able writer) can conceive of influences under which all 
mankind might be brought, even in this life, by which they 
could be rendered better and happier ; and gradually prepared 
for the hi2:hest and bricrhtest conditions in the realm of arch- 
angel existence. And shall it be presumed for a moment that 
infinite love and wisdom have made no provision for the ulti- 
mate happiness of helpless humanity, after the unavoidable and 



120 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

torturing experiences of earth shall have ended? Can it be sup- 
posed that no means have been provided for the development 
of faculties in another life which have fallen short of maturity 
in this ; and which, from their nature, must have been bestowed 
by God for ulterior purposes of good ? Brought mto the earth 
life without being consulted, forced by law through its changing 
experiences, the merest child of circumstances beyond human 
control,— and taken from it at the last, independent of his own 
volition, — surely, the spirit of irony alone must have prevailed 
in the projection of man upon this planet, if there be no code of 
life in the hereafter, universally applicable, through which the 
inevitable errors of time may be corrected, and the sorrows of 
earth find abundant compensation. 

The facts and philosophy of Spiritualism, however, inculcate 
too high an estimate of the Author of existence, and of the 
laws of being for its believers, to accept any of these horrible 
dogmas in regard to human destiny. Nor do we accede alto- 
gether to the more liberal idea entertained by some that (so 
called) death constitutes a peculiar alchemy by which bad men 
can be immediately transmuted into good men upon the merits 
of any vicarious sacrifice in the past, however meritorious or 
noble it may have been. Still less can we entertain the idea of 
another class, who practically inculcate the existence of a par- 
tial Deity in the declaration that the elect of God, — a chosen 
few, — leaving all their imperfections behind, are alone destined 
to the enjoyment of bliss beyond the grave. In fact. Spiritualism 
rejects all such dogmatic theories as have been inculcated on the 
subject of the soul's future as wholly incompatible with any just 
conception of a Divine Father, and as unsatisfactory to the innate 
aspirations of the soul. So much, indeed, do these creeds and 
systems fall short of supplying the needs of the general mind that 
men and women all over Christendom are turning from the old 
familiar pathways to look at all new things claiming the savor of 
religion. With the Spiritualists, many other minds have like- 
wise grown tired 



THE FIKAL EESUERECTION. 121 

" Of dropping buckets into empty welis, 
And growing old in drawing nothing up." 

" They long for the green pastures along the streams which 
run among the hills of spiritual truth. And soon, compara- 
tively, like ourselves, they will be found willing to leap over, 
crawl under, or crowd through the bars of the old enclosures in 
search of freedom of thought and a legitimate expansion of the 
innate properties of the soul." Indeed, a general need is begin- 
n'mo- to be felt throuorhout Christendom for somethinoj broader, 
and higher, and better than the past is represented to have fur- 
nished. The need is even greater and deeper than the popular 
consciousness thereof. Can such revivals of religion as have 
been conducted by the Salvation Army, or through Moody and 
Sankey and others, gratify this need in man's moral nature? Do 
they not rather, when the fever of excitement has died out, 
leave the mind in a still more unhealthy state, with a still 
greater void ? Can present organizations supply this great 
demand ? We fear they are wholly incompetent, for the reason 
that, although orthodox theology may have taught some truths 
in the past, it is today devoted rather to the dissemination of 
dogmas than to the promulgation of moral truth ; to the observ- 
ance of forms rather than the elevation of man's spiritual 
nature. It is busy in the enforcement of creeds which, however 
well adapted to the mental conditions amid which they had 
birth, are wholly insufficient to satisfy the soul-needs of today ; 
instead of inculcating more enlarged views as to the nature of 
the soul, and the conditions of a future somewhat in consonance 
with the aspirations of humanity, as well as in harmony with 
the infinite attributes of the infinite source of all being. " What 
a joy it would be," said Theodore Parker, upon one occasion, 
" what a joy it would be, if there should come to pass a real 
revival of true religion, of piety and morality, throughout Chris- 
tendom. A great new growth of the soul, prophetic of whole 
Messianic harvests of truthfulness, of brotherly love, and of true 
piety yet to come." 



122 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

Only think of it. The revival of a true religion, — its repre- 
sentatives teaching the glorious truths of nature and individual 
human consciousness, proclaiming the ever-beneficent presence 
of the Ever-Living God, who inspires man today as lie has ever 
done throughout time ; who inspires the soul through interme- 
diate and appropriate agencies, as through the sunshine and the 
shower He inspires the earth in her production of the sweet- 
scented flower, and the life-sustaining grain. It is toward such 
a revival that Spiritualism is looking, — ■ the revival of the Christ 
principle, practically, in the every-day life of the soul, independ- 
ent of church and creed, — not the revival or continuance of 
mere dogmas and enforced beliefs, which seem to impiously 
regard the Infinite Father as " an overworked and angry magis- 
trate, man as naturally fit only to be damned, and hell as a 
permanent penal settlement," located somewhere in the neigh- 
borhood of the antipodes, or else in some accursed spot in the 
atmosphere surrounding the earth, unknown to angel or arch- 
angel lore. 

Under the influence of such materialistic beliefs, some men 
seem to act in this world as though they thought themselves 
privileged, at a money valuation, to purchase reserved seats in 
the next ; whilst, in some directions, eternal mercy seems to be 
farmed out, like a turnpike gate on the high road, which none can 
pass but those who pay toll. And these are some of the results 
of reliance upon mere authority, without regard to the prompt- 
ings of the individual soul, which is unmistakably the revelator 
of truth unto itself. In this connection, the poet Gothe has 
said: " He who has art and science has religion also." To 
my mind, he who has art and science, sanctified by true spirit- 
ual emotion, has a philosophical religion, which needs only the 
culture of the moral faculties to render it of practical advantage 
in this life, and of ultimate advantage in the life beyond. 

But, as Spiritualism teaches, there are no philosophical 
grounds for such inconsistencies and vagaries of belief as those 
to which I have referred. The spirit or soul being an emana- 



THE FINAL RESURRECTION. 123 

tion from Deity, as Spiritualism declares, goodness and truth 
are innate spiritual qualities, whilst evil and falsity are but de- 
fects of the external organization, and incidental to the law of 
progress, which is universally operative. The outward mani- 
festations of these latter qualities, therefore, can have but a 
reflex action upon man's spiritual nature, and can only be tem- 
porary in duration. Besides, as I have shown, if men were 
instantaneously relieved of the relative effects of the organiza- 
tional defects of time ; if men were immediately and radically 
changed by the resurrection from the body, they would not 
even know themselves ; and the purposes of both spheres of 
existence, of time and eternity, would thus be entirely ignored. 
Suppose, for instance, everything that is not perfectly beautiful, 
pure, and true were to be instantaneously eliminated from the 
will and understanding, the thought and affection, of each one 
of us here, I fear there would be not a very great deal left by 
which we could identify ourselves. And, certainly, we are not 
much worse than others, although not claiming to be of the elect. 
Thus Spiritualism is not iconoclastic only ; it is likewise con- 
structive, although through the neglect of proper investigation 
it is not thus generally understood. Spiritualism has not only 
" renounced idols of stone and idols of wood, and is likewise 
urging the necessity of breaking in pieces all idols built up of 
books and traditions," of fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs and 
arbitrary authoritarians ; but at the same time the inculcations 
of this school most emphatically urge the necessity and the 
wisdom of seeking to cherish whilst in the earth life the noblest 
and most enduring of man's emotions, the worship of the good, 
the true, and the beautiful in the infinite unknown, by culti- 
vating (in the language of one of our best writers) a higher 
and still higher appreciation of what may be known of these 
diviner attributes through the progressive tendencies of the 
finite and the human, and that by this process of moral culture 
the individual soul is prepared for its resurrection, come when 
it may. 



124 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

Besides, the facts of Spiritualism, those wonderful phenom- 
ena which have been so often grossly misunderstood and sadly- 
misrepresented, satisfactorily demonstrate that the spirit world 
is not located at a distance outside of the realm of human 
appreciation, but that it is here, all around us, surrounding and 
interpenetrating the conditions among which we dwell, removed 
from our sight, and practically separated from us only by the 
thin veil of matter with which we are clothed as individualized 
spirits, and that when this veil of matter is removed by a resur- 
rection of the man from the body, the spirit world in which he 
has been all the time living is revealed to him more clearly, 
with no immediate change whatever in the man himself, as I 
have said, he is the same being, and the creature of the same 
laws, the law of individual progress included. And in this 
philosophic conception of individual growth beyond the grave, 
proportioned as in this life to individual effort and desire. Spir- 
itualism triumphs over all the dogmatic revealments of the ages 
that have passed. Death, through this law, brings no terror to 
the Spiritualist. It is but the flower-encircled door leading to 
the soul's immediate resurrection into a realm of diviner possi- 
bilities, a pathway of unending development, by and throuo-h 
which infinite justice and infinite mercy are beautifully recon- 
ciled ; a career of progress in which the pangs of retribution 
are inevitably soothed by the inexpressible joys of legitimate 
compensation, as successive ceons of thought and feeling shall 
continue to indicate the ascending scale of human happiness 
forever. 

Thus, my friends, the religion of Spiritualism is well suited 
for both time and eternity. The true Spiritualist should have 
confidence in God, and confidence in man, knowing that all are 
alike the children of one common Father. He should learn to 
pity the inharmonious idiosyncrasies of individual character, 
and to rise above the petty bickerings of social life as well as 
all the sterner experiences of the battle of existence, knowing 
so well what a beautiful sphere of compensation and of just 



THE FINAL BESUKRECTION. 125 

retribution we shall enter upon when the morning of an imme- 
diate resurrection shall dawn for each. 

As a conclusion, in the language of modern inspiration, 
allow me to add — 

"Oh! tell us, friends, where is Death ! 

We do not find it here ; 
We only find still more of life 

Each moment in this sphere. 
We now are here, friends, where the flowers 

Pour forth their fragrant breath, 
And no one in these heavenly bowers 

Can tell us aught of Death. 

They said, dear friends, that we must die, 

And slumber 'neath the sod, 
Until at some far distant day 

We heard the trump of God ; 
But such sweet tones of melody 

Are falling on the ear, 
We know this must be Heaven, 

And our Father must be here. 

And when your burning tear-drops fell 

Upon each pallid brow. 
We heard your cries of agony, 

'We have no darlings, now.' 
But, could you 've seen the angel throng 

That bore each soul away. 
You'd not have shed another tear 

Upon the pulseless clay. 

Then never, never say again 

Your friends are in the grave, 
For could you see the fountain bright 

In which we often lave. 
And could you feel upon your brows 

Our warm seraphic breath. 
You 'd know that we have never felt 

The chilling kiss of Death. " 



LECTURE VII. 

FUTURE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life 
eternal.— Matt., ch. xxv., v. 46. 
In my Father's house are many mansions. — John, ch. xiv., v. 2. 

The prominent evil of Christendom, as I conceive, is a too 
confident and blind reliance upon what is deemed established 
authority in regard to all eschatological conceptions and relig- 
ious matters generally. Whilst under the influence of subser- 
viency to this alleged authority many opponents of Spiritualism, 
for the want of better weapons, too frequently assumed to kill 
its arguments with the silliness of a sarcasm, and to dismiss its 
truths with the empty impertinence of a sneer. This moral 
amaurosis has arisen and been fostered through the force of 
educational faith, during the generations that have come and 
gone, to such an extent that even in the present age of progress 
and general enlightenment many are apt at times to lose sight 
of the great truth so encouraging to the Spiritualist that man- 
kind never surrenders to time, and that there is a progress even 
in what is called Christianity. I do not utter these sentiments, 
or others of like character that may follow at any time, in a 
spirit of bigotry, fully satisfied as I am that he who dogmatizes 
in such matters occupies a less enviable position even than he 
who doubts. Nor do I wish to be understood as at war with 
individuals, although I may seemingly entrench upon individual 
opinions ; for I trust I would be among the last to do violence 
to personal feelings. I am seeking rather in my advocacy of 

(126) 



FUTUEE KEWAEDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 127 

what I am taught as truth to point out what appear to be 
misdirections of sentiment, under the influence of ecclesiastical 
authoritarians, as well as misapplication of principle on the part 
of denominational associations in the great field of religious 
thought. 

An able writer upon " The Rise and Progress of Christian- 
ity " says in effect, most truthfully, that the treatment of Chris- 
tianity has hitherto oscillated between Church authority on the 
one hand and individual impulse and feeling on the other, rea- 
son playing but an incidental and secondary part. The early 
misapplication of reason in the attempt to discover by way of 
speculative inference the essential nature of Deity could but 
meet with discomfiture. The controversies of the early centu- 
ries with regard to the trinity were but an entanglement of 
ideas, in which the human mind, driven from point to point by 
its own ingenuity, eventually registered the evidence of its tor- 
ture and despair in the unintelligible jargon of the Athanasian 
creed. Reason, however, at the dawning of the Protestant 
Reformation, assumed again to battle with the creeds ; or rather 
with the articles of dogma that had taken almost entire posses- 
sion of the Christian mind during the middle ages. But it 
would seem that this latter attempt has proved well nigh as 
ineffectual as the former. For, although Protestantism claims 
to grant the right of private judgment to its adherents, still, 
with regard to its practical operations, it cannot be said that 
today there is any real alliance between faith and reason, but 
rather a mystical coalition, so to speak, between the recognized 
orthodox dogma and the private opinion of the professed be- 
liever ; so that, if a man cannot prove the truth of his position, 
he can at least school himself to believe that he is right, and 
thus the dogma may be shaped to suit the feeling, or the feeling 
conveniently expanded to grasp the mysteries of the dogma. 
Some in the present day find such a course of procedure more 
or less easy, whilst with others it is becoming more and more 
difficult. And to this latter class belong those minds who are 



128 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

gradually leaping over sectarian barriers, and are seeking 
greener pastures and broader fields of thought and aspiration. 
In this connection, I may remark, likewise, that it is admittedly 
difficult to form an impartial opinion as to what faith the reputed 
founder of Christianity himself sought to promulgate. Jesus 
did not write. His early teachings and his example no doubt 
gave a new feeling and a new spirit to the age in which he 
lived, but no new system of doctrine. His immediate apostles 
preached, but the best ecclesiastical historians declare that the 
written works attributed to them have very little claim to be 
considered genuine. Nevertheless, the popular churches declare 
that Christianity either has or will redeem the world. But if 
it be inquired what is Christianity? the answers will be almost 
as numerous as the individuals who respond. Hence the phi- 
losophic Spiritualist is justified in declaring the Christianity of 
the popular churches of the day nothing more or less than an 
exponent of individual fancies ; and in enjoining upon the 
searcher after truth, in addition to listening to the intuitions 
of his own soul, to unprejudicedly investigate history in order 
that he may be able to distinguish the essence of religion from 
its mere appendages, its forms, its ceremonies, and its arbitrary 
dogmas. 

Again, as to the uncertainties of the faith said to have been 
founded by the good man of Nazareth, I may add that imme- 
diately succeeding the departure of the apostles from earthly 
labor there were in existence some seventy different sects of 
Christians, all of them claiming to be the followers of the same 
good master, and yet all of them differing the one from the 
other with regard to points of doctrine. There were in exist- 
ence, likewise, some fifty gospels, thirty-six Acts of the Apos- 
tles, and twelve Apocalypses. Among these were the Acts of 
Andrew, the Gospel of Andrew, the Gospel according to the 
Twelve Apostles, the Gospel of Barnabas, the Gospel of Bar- 
tholomew, an Epistle of Christ, the Gospel of Matthias, the 
Gospel according to the Nazarenes, the Acts of Paul, the Rev- 



FUTURE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 129 

elation of Paul, the Gospel of Philip, the Acts of Philip, the 
Gospel of Peter, the Acts of Peter, the Revelation of Peter, 
the Revelation of Stephen, the Gospel of Thaddeus, the Gospel 
of Perfection, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, and 
a number of others, all of which in the early centuries were 
deemed to be equally as divinely inspired as were those which 
you have today. Besides, the method of selecting the canonical 
books by the Fathers — for, remember, our world had a Church 
before it possessed a Bible — was necessarily arbitrary. Instead 
of measuring the opinion presented for consideration by " some 
canonical book previously adopted, we are told that the book 
presented for their decision was measured by some doctrine 
already agreed upon, and hence some books that were at first 
rejected, owing to increased enlightenment, or from some other 
cause, after the lapse of years were elevated to a higher position 
in the estimation of the world, whilst others previously deemed 
orthodox were rejected. It is also a fact that the original 
Hebrew copies of these New Testament books, of which learned 
doctors of divinity speak so frequently, were entirely destroyed 
after their translation into Greek, and that what remains to 
Christendom today is referable to the learning and the labor 
of the early Fathers of the Church. At about the close of the 
third century, however, a number of Gospels and Epistles were 
collated into one volume, and denominated " The New Testa- 
ment." This copy did not contain the Acts of the Apostles or 
the Book of Revelation, as now comprehended therein. The 
Acts of the Apostles was added in A. D. 408, and the Book of 
Revelation was included in A. D. 565. Other emendations and 
additions were likewise made, as the best authorities inform us. 
Notwithstanding such facts as these, which certainly clergymen 
should be familiar with, the declaration is still heralded through- 
out the land that you should accept the Bible as the only infal- 
lible record, the only infallible guide. But in response to this 
declaration the cultured and inquiring mind of the age can but 
inquire which Bible is it that we are to accept thus unquestion- 



130 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

ingly? Is it the Protestant Bible that has sixty-six books, or 
is it the Catholic Bible which has seventy-six books, and which 
existed more than a thousand years before the Protestant Bible 
now in use? or is it Luther's Bible, which did not originally 
contain the Epistles of James, or the Book of Revelation ? or 
is it Boothroyd's Bible which does not contain the Songs of Solo- 
mon ? or is it the Samaritan Bible, which has only the five 
books attributed to Moses ? or is it the Jewish Bible, which, 
according to Josephus, has but twenty-two books ? or some one 
of the many others I might name ? Of this list the Protestant 
Church declares the Bible now in use in England and America 
is unmistakably the infallible will of God ; and there are many 
good and honest people who, through the force of early educa- 
tion, really believe that the present version, as we now have it, 
is verbatim et literatim, as it came from the mouth of a personal 
God. This Bible was presented to the world A. D. 1617, 
during the reign of James the I. of England. Let us briefly 
refer to the circumstances of its introduction. 

Prior to the adoption of the King James Bible there had 
been a greater number of translations than perhaps the general 
reader is aware of. Theodoret, who lived in the middle of the 
fifth century says that in his day there were in existence the 
Armenian, the Scythian, the Syrian, the Ethiopian, the Indian, 
the Persian, and the Samaritan translations. In the year 1200 
a translation was made into the French language, and about 
the same time a translation into the Spanish language ; in the 
year 1390 a translation was made into the Polish language ; 
in the year 1471 a translation was made into the Italian lan- 
guage ; Wickliffe completed his translation into the English 
language in the year 1382 ; Luther completed his translation 
into the German language about the year 1530 ; Tyndall com- 
pleted his translation into the English language about the same 
year. Other translations into English likewise existed prior to 
the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Early in her reign the English 
nation possessed an authorized translation, executed by the 



FUTURE REWARDS AND PtJNISHMENTS. 131 

Bishops of the Church of England, under the guidance of Arch- 
bishop Parker. James I. succeeded Queen Elizabeth to the 
throne of England, and at his command, as I have said, in 1611, 
the Bishops furnished another authorized version under his 
direction and supervision. And this is the Bible now in use in 
America ; and by the Protestants, strangely enough, declared 
to be infallible. The reign of this monarch, says an English 
author, himself a Protestant, remains a foul blot upon the page 
of history, which not all the blood and horrors of the great 
rebellion — of which it was the origin and cause — have been 
able to efface. He was one of the most disgusting monarchs 
that ever sat on the English throne. He was proverbially un- 
just. His cold and fanatical cruelties were more horrible than 
the wildest excesses of passionate tyranny. Indeed, his history 
is characterized by villainous efforts to crush the liberties of the 
people, and to establish the kingly prerogative upon the ruins 
of the English constitution ; as well as his pitiful pedantry of 
attempting to erect himself into an ecclesiastical judge, and set- 
ting himself up as the Pope of Great Britain. He likewise 
believed in the influence of witches in the affairs of human life, 
and many a poor woman suffered physical death during his reign 
in consequence. Yet this is the ruler under whose supervision 
the present version of the Bible was presented to the world, and 
whose opinions decided all differences among the translators. 
This version was made by the Bishops from a Greek text which 
Erasmus in 1516, and Robert Stephens in 1550, had formed 
from manuscripts of later date than the tenth century. Whether 
these manuscripts were thoroughly trustworthy has long been 
matter of diligent and learned investigation. Since the century 
referred to, Greek manuscripts have been discovered of far 
greater antiquity than those of Erasmus and Stephens, as well 
as- others in Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and Gothic, into which lan- 
guages the text of the Bible was translated between the second 
and fourth centuries ; while in the works of the Fathers, from 
the second century downward, many quotations from the New 



132 UNAISIS WEE ABLE LOGIC. 

Testament have been found and compared. And the result has 
been that, while on one hand scholars have become aware that 
the text of Erasmus and Stephens was in use in the Byzantine 
Empire before the tenth century, on the other hand they have 
discovered thousands of readings which had escaped the notice of 
these writers. The question then arose which reading, in each 
case, most correctly represented what the Apostles had written ? 
Which, learned men agree, is by no means an easy question, since 
the variations in the documents are very ancient, and scholars 
are much divided as to the readings which most exactly convey 
what they are pleased to term the Word of God. One thing, how- 
ever, is agreed upon by the majority of those who understand the 
subject, viz., that the oldest copies approach the original text more 
nearly than the later ones. Is there not, then, some reason in 
questioning the infallibility of so late a version as the King 
James Bible now in use ? 

iFurther, allow me to call your attention for a moment to 
three ancient Greek manuscripts, which are esteemed as undoubt- 
edly standing at the head of all the ancient copies of the New 
Testament. One is called the Vatican Codex, and is deposited 
in the Vatican at Rome. Whence it was acquired by the 
Vatican library is not known ; but it is named in the first cata- 
logue of that collection, which dates from the year 1475. This 
manuscript embraces the Old and part of the New Testament, 
the four Gospels, the Acts, the seven Catholic Epistles, nine 
of the Pauline Epistles, and the Epistle to the Hebrews as far as 
the 9th chapter, 14th verse, from which verse to the end of the 
New Testament it is deficient. 

The next referred to is the Alexandrine Codex, which was 
presented to King Charles I., in 1628, by Cyril Sucar, Patriarch 
of Constantinople, who had himself brought it from Alexandria, 
and whence it derives its name. It contains the Old and part 
of the New Testaments, — portions of Matthew, John, and 2nd 
Corinthians being wanting. In addition, this manuscript con- 
tains the Epistle of Clemens Romanus (the only known copy), 



FUTURE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 166 

a letter of Athanasius, and a treatise of Eusebius upon the 
Psalms. It is now in the British Museum, in London, where are 
also the Syriac Gospels, transferred from the convents of the 
Nitrian desert. 

The third referred to is the Sinaitic Codex, discovered in 
1844 at the convent of St. Catharine, on Mount Sinai, by the 
learned Constantine Tischendorf, who, at the instance of Em- 
peror Alexander II., of Russia, returned to the convent in 1859, 
and took this ancient manuscript to St. Petersburg, where it 
still remains. It contains the Old and New Testaments, the 
latter without the loss of a single leaf. In addition, it contains 
the entire " Epistle of Barnabas," and a portion of the " Shep- 
herd of Hermas," — two books which, down to the beginning 
of the fourth century, were looked upon as a portion of the 
Scriptures. The first place among these three great manu- 
scripts, both for age and extent, is awarded by the learned to 
the Sinaitic Codex, the second to the Vatican, and the third to 
the Alexandrine ; yet neither is considered as standing so high 
that its sole verdict is sufficient to silence all contradiction. Of 
these three manuscripts, however, a learned Christian writer 
says : " It is by their standard that both the early editions of 
the Greek text and the modern versions are to be compared 
and corrected." " Indeed," he continues, " it is not too much to 
hope that by their means a Greek text of the New Testament 
may sooner or later be settled, which shall serve as the basis of 
translation for all Christian communities." 

In this connection, permit me to remark that the spiritual 
school is loudly denounced, sometimes even by the liberal pul- 
pit, for refusing to accept the King James Bible now in use 
as an infallible record ; and yet I have just quoted high Chris- 
tian authority for the fact that there never has been a correct 
basis of translation ; and that hopes are entertained throughout 
Christendom that one will be eventually established througli the 
proper use of these three ancient manuscripts to which I have 



lo4 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

just referred. Surely, then, the utterances of the spiritual ros- 
trum are not quite so reprehensible as has been supposed. 

In addition to the numerous translations just adverted to, 
there are two others of material importance which I will but 
briefly mention, and then proceed to the more immediate con- 
sideration of my text, when I hope you will be able the better 
to perceive the tendency of the remarks already offered. I allude 
first to what is called the Vulgate, — that is, the translation of 
the Old and New Testaments into the Latin Language, in the 
fourth century, by St. Jerome. This is still the authorized 
translation of the Catholic Church ; and is esteemed as second 
only to the Septuagint. What is called the Septuagint is a trans- 
lation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew to the Greek. 
This translation was made at Alexandria two hundred and 
eighty-four years before the birth of the Nazareneby seventy- 
two learned Hebrews, under the auspices and authority of Ptol- 
emy Philadelphus. The Greek language at this period in the 
history of mankind had become a common language of com- 
munication for the learned of the then civilized world, and so 
remained for many centuries, viz., in Greece, along the shores 
of the Euxine, the whole of Asia IMinor, Syria, Egypt, Carthage 
and her dependencies, Rome and her dependencies, together with 
all the towns and cities of the Mediterranean. "And thus," says 
an able writer, "the sealed-up literature of Palestine was thrown 
open to the world "; and thus little Judea, nestling in an angle 
of Asia, scarcely visible as a fraction of Syria, overshadowed on 
the one hand by the ancient settlements of the Nile, and on the 
other by the vast empire that for thousands of years occupied the 
banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris, materially affected the 
religious sentiment of the world. These two translations, the 
Vulgate and the Septuagint, with the exception of the three great 
manuscripts already alluded to, are esteemed the best that have 
been made. 

But even the Vulgate and the Septuagint are not without 
their errors of translation, only one of which I have time to 



FUTURE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 135 

allude to at present, which has led to an exceedingly absurd 
mistake in some of the finest productions of Art. Thus, the 
horn of the Oriental buffalo, and a pencil of light, were both 
conical in shape ; hence, in the Hebrew language, the same 
word was used for each. Jerome, in translating the thirty-fourth 
chapter of Exodus, made the Vulgate translation say of Moses, 
as he came down from the mount, that his face or head was 
horned, or had horns on it ; when he should have translated 
it (scholars now say) somewhat in this wise : " His very face 
or head radiated light," etc. In consequence of this, the great 
Michael Angelo, in one of his wonderful specimens of art, actu- 
ally placed horns on the head of the man reputed to be the 
meekest the world has ever known. 

And now I approach more immediately the consideration of 
the two texts presented in the opening of my discourse : " These 
shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous 
into life eternal "; and, " In my Father's house are many man- 
sions." One of these texts, as it reads in the English transla- 
tion now in use, assigns but two places for humanity in the 
spheres beyond the grave, and one of these, at least, by no 
means an enviable one ; the other declares there are many. 
There is no escape from the conclusion that here is a flat con- 
tradiction existing in a record which is pronounced to be the 
infallible Word of God. Now, if we are honestly in search of 
truth, which is the best course to be pursued? Shall we blindly 
accept both statements, and declare that no difference exists 
simply because we are commanded to do so upon the assumed 
authority of sectarian teachers ? Or shall we not, rather, as 
rational creatures, and in the exercise of the faculties with 
which God has endowed us, seek for some explanation in char- 
acter with the high claims made for the book from whence these 
texts are taken ? The spiritual school has adopted the latter 
course, and for so doing has been widely condemned. Never- 
theless, in addition to the teachings of our spirit friends, we find 
additional authority in the course pursued by learned men for 



136 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

generations before us, many of whom, likewise, were essentially 
religious without being sectarian in their sentiments and practice. 
The original Hebrew manuscripts of the New Testament, as I 
have stated, were destroyed after copies had been taken in the 
Greek language. The jEirst, or Hebrew manuscripts, being of 
course inaccessible in the event of any dispute or doubt as to 
words or sentences in any modern version, reference could only 
properly be had to existing Greek copies. The first text re- 
peated in your hearing, with its doctrine of the durability of 
rewards and punishments in the future world, has undergone the 
closest and most critical' examination on the part of some of the 
ablest thinkers and best classical scholars known ; and the result 
has been exceedingly gratifying to the lovers of truth wherever 
found ; whilst it has been unmistakably demonstrated that the 
English Bible now in use in America is decidedly a mistransla- 
tion as far as this particular text is concerned, at least. And, 
it can likewise be readily perceived, as I hope to show, that a 
true rendering of this text will harmonize beautifully with the 
teachings of the spiritual school as to future conditions, for 
which, during the last thirty years, the advocates of this school 
have met with the most unqualified condemnation of both the 
press and the pulpit of our land. I will endeavor to explain 
how the mistranslation in all probability must have occurred, 
so that any unprejudiced mind can readily perceive the error. 
With those minds — and unfortunately, through the force of 
education, there are some such who seem determined that, for 
the glory of God, some poor souls must suffer eternal punishment 
— my arguments can avail but little. 

In the first place, it is a common error, more common in the 
past than in the present, perhaps, to suppose that every idea or 
word which exists for one language must necessarily have an 
interchangeable equivalent in all other languages. And this is 
the error the translators of the King James Bible seem to have 
fallen into ; unless we suppose the mistranslation was purposely 
made, in order the better to enforce upon the common mind the 



FUTTJEE RBWABDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 137 

idea of damnatioD, supposing the fear thereof to be the greater 
iDccDtive to faith in the various other dogmas they were seeking 
to inculcate. There are words by the thousand, however, in 
the various languages for which there is no interchangeable 
equivalent. Hence, we are coining words in our own language 
almost daily, especially from the French, coquette, parquet, depot, 
etc. Such is the fact with one of the words in the Greek of 
the text in question, — the Greek noun from which is derived 
the Greek adjective IIwws; the one used in the text is IIwv. 
This adjective IIwi/os is translated in the King James Bible 
" everlasting " and " eternal." But every Greek scholar will 
tell you that this Greek noun and adjective have neither of them 
an interchangeable equivalent in the English language, and that 
the two adjectives " everlasting " and " eternal," used in the ver- 
sion now claimed to be infallible, not only do not convey a true 
interpretation of the Greek words, but actually express a very 
opposite meaning to what is the correct definition. What, then, 
is the appropriate translation ? what is the true meaning of the 
Greek adjective IIwi/os, or rather of the Greek noun IIwv, from 
which the adjective used is derived ? As I have intimated, no 
one word in the English language can possibly serve as a trans- 
lation. The correct definition of this one Greek word, however, 
is this, as all Greek scholars will tell you: ''•That duration or 
cycle of existence which belongs to an object universally in sight 
of its genus'' Thus, for instance, the IIwv of an apple tree and 
the Hwv of a hickory tree may be each a full and perfect IIwv 
in itself, and yet differ very essentially the one from the other. 
The Hoiv of infancy, the IIwv of youth, the 11 wv of manhood, and 
the IIwv of old age may all exist in the general IIwv of one life, 
and yet all be full and perfect ; since, as you doubtless perceive, 
every II wv furnishes the secret why of its own existence, and 
that, therefore, every object whatever, every mode of existence, 
here or elsewhere, has its own separate and independent Hwv. 

But it is argued by the advocates of eternal punishment that 
the forty-seven Bishops of the Church of England who, under 



138 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

King James, gave us the present version of the Bible constitute 
exceedingly high authority. And so, perhaps, they do ; but 
have not 1 given equally as high authority as to the unreliability 
of the sources upon which these bishops based their translation ? 
And, besides, in our day, and in our land, the reading and the 
thinking public are rapidly outnumbering the merely learned 
public ; and the time has gone by when self-constituted authori- 
ties in such matters can remain unquestioned, whilst the day is 
dawning, through the instrumentality of Spiritualism, when soul- 
consciousness alone shall determine for itself the revelation of 
the hour. 

Let us, then, Anglicize this Greek adjective IIwvos, remem- 
bering the definition of the noun from which it is derived, and, 
substituting it for the words "eternal" and "everlasting," see 
how much more rationally the text will read thus : " These 
shall go away into Ionic punishment, but the righteous into life 
lonic,'^ — that is, these shall go into just such suffering as they 
have wrought out for themselves, and the righteous into just 
such degrees of happiness as they have prepared themselves to 
enjoy. And thus rendering this text, you can at once perceive 
how beautifully it may harmonize with the second verse re- 
peated at the commencement : " In my Father's house are many 
mansions." No contradiction any longer exists to mar the 
truth or beauty of either. 

The Spiritualist, likewise, can recognize an harmonious 
agreement between the teachings of the dear spirits and the 
declarations of the New Testament as found in my texts. In 
contradiction of the orthodox dogma, that death fixes the fate 
of the race forever in one of two localities, either heaven or 
hell. Spiritualism has been teaching for more than a quarter of 
a century that the spirit world is made up of individual condi- 
tions as consequent upon individual activities iu this life, glorious 
and happy or the reverse, proportioned to individual preparation 
for participation in either ; and, further, that the law of prog- 
ress, of which man is the creature here, extending beyond the 



rUTTTRE EEWABDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 139 

confines of time, each individual, proportioned to desire and 
effort, may continue to advance from lower to higher conditions 
perpetually throughout the countless ages of eternity,- thus en- 
couraging hope of future joy to the darkest soul in the deepest 
misery of material misdirection. The law of individual condi- 
tions certainly agrees with the declaration of Jesus as to the 
" many mansions " existing in his Father's house, whilst the 
law of individual progress is correspondential to the Ionic rela- 
tions legitimately deducible from a correct translation of the 
first-named text under consideration. Surely, it cannot be denied 
that these are logical conclusions. If so, the truth of the first 
century of the Christian era and the truth of today are not at 
variance ; the truths of the New Testament inspiration and of 
the inspiration of the nineteenth century harmonize most beau- 
tifully. Indeed, truth is eternal, agreeing with itself yester- 
day, today, and forever. Therefore, whilst questioning the au- 
thenticity of the King James Bible, and presenting, as I believe, 
sufficient grounds for the questioning, I certainly do not wish to 
be understood as rejecting any truths the individual soul may 
find therein adapted to its needs. Whilst ignoring the infalli- 
bility of the Bible as an entity, I can but recognize it as a won- 
derful collocation of spiritual communications for the most 
part adapted to the age in which they were written, and as 
containing many beautiful spiritual truths applicable to man in 
any age. But the individual soul must itself be the judge as to 
the applicability of these. truths to its own needs, for, indeed, 
soul-consciousness is normally and forever the revelator of God's 
will unto itself. If, therefore, you extract the spiritual facts and 
truths from the Bible, small indeed will be the remainder ; take 
Spiritualism from the Bible and you will have left only what 
the weeping mother holds to her bosom when the spirit of her 
babe has been received into the arms of God's pale angel of 
death, — simply the outer coverings. Still, as I have once before 
said, what the New Testament was to the Old, I believe Spirit- 
ualism is to the New, an extension of its views, with a new and 



140 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

brighter light thrown upon its obscurities. And, for myself, I 
would not, as is charged against the spiritual school, seek to 
ignore the Bible altogether. If I am correctly impressed, a 
majority of this school neither reject it or accept it as an entity, 
recognizing only what to the individual soul-consciousness recom- 
mends itself as true. Nevertheless, I can but think that practi- 
cally we Spiritualists, with all our alleged infidelity, believe more 
fully in the spiritual truths of the Bible than do its orthodox 
advocates who professedly recognize the infallibility of all its 
assumed teachings. This must be so, or these professed believ- 
ers in what it is declared the Bible teaches are exceedingly incon- 
sistent in one direction at least if in none other. How can any- 
one, with the common feelings of humanity, who really believes 
in the dogmas said to be founded upon the Bible, venture to 
rear a family, for instance ? What father can look upon the face 
of his sleeping child, when thus believing, without the most fear- 
ful and horrible anticipations as to the future of his offspring ? 
What mother, with the orthodox faith said to be in accordance 
with the teachings of the Bible, could hold her babe to her bosom 
and praise God for the blessing, believing it to have been begotten 
in sin and shaped in iniquity, with the almost certain apprehen- 
sion, likewise, that, as a totally depraved creature, it must be 
eventually damned ? Who, I repeat, that really believes in the 
dogmas of total depravity and eternal damnation, both said to be 
taken from the Bible, could willingly engage in rearing children 
on earth with the certainty that well nigh nine-tenths of every 
family must contribute eventually to the peopling of an ever- 
lasting hell ? No, it cannot be ! The noble and true-hearted 
men and women of the nineteenth century, although professedly 
recognizing the infallibility of the book from whence such dog- 
mas are taken, do not and cannot believe such monstrous libels 
upon both man and his Maker. Cultivated humanity is undoubt- 
edly better than its creeds. The Spiritualist, thank Heaven, 
does not believe such terrible doctrines, come from whence 
they may, but is aiming for the development of a higher and a 



FUTTJEE KEWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 141 

nobler faith, under the influence of which men and women can 
be truer to their children, truer to themselves, truer to nature, 
and truer to God than to believe that such terrible decrees and 
fearful alternatives as are found in the professedly Biblical 
creeds of the day ever emanated from a God of infinite love 
and infinite wisdom. 

In conclusion, my friends, Spiritualism teaches us, as I have 
said, more ennobling conceptions of humanity, a loftier appre- 
ciation of the majestic universe of which we are a component 
part, and a higher reverence for the Infinite Father soul, who is 
ruling the same in so much harmony and beauty through laws 
co-existent with himself. It teaches us that this Divine Father 
has given man a boundless field for the occupation of his fac- 
ulties, with unlimited supplies as the reward of effort ; thought, 
with its varied expressions ; achievement, with its rich content- 
ment ; aspiration, with its sacred fires ; self-denial, with its vic- 
tories; hope, with its promises ; faith, with its yearnings and its 
rewards ; nature, in all her glory and tenderness ; knowledge, 
in all its attractions ; art, in all its splendor ; and tells us con- 
tinually that the soul thus endowed should never descend to the 
low and groveling things of sense, substituting these for richer 
and higher blessings. And we know, if we are true to our- 
selves in the earth life ; if we heed the counsel of our angdl 
friends, and act up to our highest sense of right in the exercise 
of brotherly love and charity continually, independent of beliefs 
and disbeliefs, as we approach the confines of time, and stand 
upon the shores of the rapidly rolling Niagara of death, we 
shall see on the other side our beloved and departed who have 
gone before, weaving for us golden cords of God's own thought, 
which, bound around the prows of our little barks, we shall be 
enabled to float joyously into a secure and happy harbor, thus 
entering upon successive IIcovs of still increasing joys throughout 
the limitless ages of eternity. 

But if, on the other hand, we have knowingly run counter to 
natural law ; if we have sinned against God, by sinning against 



142 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

our brother man, or ourselves ; if we have done ill instead of 
good, and violated our own highest conceptions of right by neg- 
lecting the loving advice of our heavenly counselors, — we must 
expect to enter into just such inharmonious and unhappy con- 
ditions as by such a line of conduct we have prepared ourselves 
for upon the other side of life, destined eventually, however, 
under the operations of the law of progress, proportioned to our 
own individual effort and desire, to emerge from these lower 
and darker conditions into higher and still higher relations, 
brighter and sublimer IIcovs of still increasing felicities, succes- 
sively, amid the unending beatitudes of the boundless pavilion 
of our God. Since, through the everlasting law of cause and 
effect, it is undoubtedly true that 

"We shape ourselves, our joy or fear, 
Of which the coming life is made, 
And fill our future's atmosphere 
With sunshine or with shade. 

The tissues of the life to be 

We weave with colors all our own, 
And in the field of destiny 

We reap as we have sown. 

Still shall the soul around it call 
The shadows which it gathered here, 

And painted on the eternal wall 
The past shall reappear. 

For there we live our life again, 

Or warmly touched, or sadly dim, 
The pictures of the past remain, — 

Man's works shall follow him.'* 



LECTURE Vin. 

JOAN OF AKC. 

History, we are told, is " philosophy teaching by example," 
and, to the external appreciation or surface perception, this is 
true. But, in addition to the sensuous experiences of life, there 
is yet another page in the history of individuals and of nations, 
the soul's record of its inner impulses and experiences, which 
are unperceived by the many, and appreciated by few. In some 
histories, however, the distinguishing features of this inner life 
are the most apparent ; and from these the most lasting impres- 
sions are received, and the profoundest wisdom gathered. From 
such lives we learn that " history assumes its adequate signifi- 
cance only when regarded as a grand intellectual and moral 
method, — a continuous demonstration, — of which God consti- 
tutes the premises, and God the conclusion." 

Such, evidently, was the life of Joan of Arc, whose martyr- 
dom is a lasting testimony of the ignorance and bigotry of the 
age that she adorned, and a perpetual memento of the wicked- 
ness and superstition of a great nation when swayed by the 
love of conquest and material wealth rather than by a desire 
for the intellectual and spiritual growth of its citizens. 

True, modern orators may speak sagely, as they suppose, of 
" the reflections of her own soul," and of '' the hallucinations " 
of this mediumistic maiden. True, Hume, Michelet, and Lam- 
artine may have designated her as an enthusiast, as a fanatic, 
and as full of romance. But, to what end ? Is there any prin- 
ciple of deep, vitalizing force (it has well been asked) that has 

(143) 



144 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

not, in some manner, engendered fanaticism? Indeed, that 
cause which has not sufficient brilliancy and beauty about it to 
arouse some natures into fanaticism need scarcely be expected 
to have intrinsic merit enough to justify martyrdom in others. 
Besides, in the operations of the divine economy, some natures 
seem to have been endowed with a vivid sense of the heroic, the 
lovely, the divine, which cold materialism terms romance, but 
which they themselves know to be that which sustains them for 
hard duties and bitter trials ; and which comforts them when 
a heartless world has made external comforts but faint and few. 
Aud what is more beautiful than the fanaticism of love, for 
instance, whether it be manifested in affection for a fellow-creat- 
ure, or in devotion to a principle ; whether it exists in a noble 
woman, battling for the ascendancy of morality and virtue, or 
in the self-sacrificing devotion of a Minnesota mail-carrier, who 
seats a crippled companion upon his only horse, and remains to 
die in the midst of flames, with the object entrusted to his care 
locked close in his arms ; whether it have a resting place in 
the bosom of a cloistered nun, wrapped in visions of her Divine 
Bridegroom ; or in the heart of a noble mother, a devoted wife, 
a faithful slave, or even in the poor dog who stretches himself 
across his master's grave and dies ? Such self-abnegating love 
still lives, still burns on, even amid the utilitarian heartiessness 
that may surround it. And it will continue to burn on even 
unto the grave, and beyond the grave, I doubt not, in the glori- 
ous hereafter. In the beautiful Summer-Land of the soul we 
shall find that all true love, every good affection, all benevolence 
of purpose, every higher aspiration, and all the unsupplied long- 
ings of the soul in time, whether deemed fanatical or otherwise, 
have been divinest prophecies to the inner man, to be abundantly 
and joyously realized in the glorious land of compensation 
toward which the hungry soul is hastening. 

The history of Joan of Arc is of importance when considered 
merely from a material standpoint, or with a view to material 
results exclusively. The active part taken by her during an 



JOAN OF ARC. 145 

excitiug period in the annals of France, and the wonderful forti- 
tude, associated with the most indefatigable energy and undaunted 
personal bravery with which she sustained herself throughout 
the whole of her career, can but arouse to enthusiastic admira- 
tion every mind capable of fully appreciating the devotion of 
the woman, or the self-sacrificing services of a true lover of her 
country. But her history, in connection with the purpose of my 
discourse, assumes its greatest significance when considered in 
relation to many facts in her experience which are strikingly, 
analogous to innumerable incidents of the present age of almost 
hourly occurrence, the investigation of which, in the light of the 
nineteenth century, is developing hopes and truths by no means 
esteemed the property of the human soul during the historical 
epoch of which I am speaking ; but which, through increasing 
knowledge of their illuminating influences, are contributing to 
the conviction that, as far as the experiences of the Maid of 
Orleans are concerned, " the best prophet of the future is the 
past." For the present age is replete with just such phenomena 
as those which, through her organism, aroused the warrior- 
statesmen of the period into superstitious awe, and startled 
churchmen of the fifteenth century into apprehensions, yet to 
be realized, doubtless, in the overthrow of ecclesiastical despot- 
ism, and which led to the bitterest persecution and ultimate 
cruel murder of one of the purest martyrs to spiritual truth 
ever known amid the intellectual and moral struggles of the 
shadowy past. 

Joan of Arc, or Jeanne d'Arc, was born on the night of the 
Epiphany (Jan. 6), 1412, of peasant parents, in the village of 
Domremy, on the borders of Lorraine, in the valley of the river 
Meuse, France. At the time of her birth, France was wasted 
by nearly a century of conflict and its consequences. Since 
1337 there had been war almost perpetually renewed with Eng- 
land ; but at the immediate date of the birth of the maid, the 
worst and then present calamities of France were the work of 
the turbulent princes of the realm, and of the wicked Queen of 



146 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

Charles VI., Isabeau of Bavaria. Charles was imbecile both 
in mind and body ; consequently, from 1392, when his diseases 
seemed to have culminated, to early in 1421, the rule of 
France was a matter of continued conflict as to the regency ; 
and likewise as to the legal rights of different claimants for 
the throne. The continuance of these wars for some years 
finally afforded opportunity to the King of England, Henry V., 
to push the ancient claim of the Plantagenets to the crown of 
France. In May, 1420, a treaty was entered into between the 
Queen, by which the Dauphin was disinherited, and Henry 
married to her daughter, thus giving him further claim to the 
throne which he coveted. In his progress toward the throne 
of France, however, he was arrested by the hand of death in 
about one year after his treaty with the treacherous wife of 
Charles VI. and her adherents. Seven weeks later the body 
of this imbecile king was gathered to those of his fathers at 
Saint Denis ; and the contest was left to be continued be- 
tween the adherents of the infant son of Henry V. of England 
and Charles VII. of France, son of the unfortunate king just 
deceased. This latter-named prince was the monarch in behalf 
of whom Joan of Arc served and suffered. 

The wonderful powers exhibited by and through the organ- 
ism of this interesting woman, and which so much startled the 
leading minds of the age in which she lived, corresponded in a 
remarkable degree, as I have said, to those presented at the 
present time through what is appropriately termed mediumistic 
agency, — in her deemed supernatural, in ours esteemed as 
simply supermundane. The .first recognizable indication of any 
peculiar power possessed by her was during her childhood, while 
tending a flock of sheep in the field in company with other 
children. She suddenly stopped in her sports with the children, 
exclaiming: "I hear my mother call me home," and rushed 
speedily to the homestead, saying to her mother : " Did you not 
call me ? I heard a voice." The mother replied : " It was not 
mine, child, go back to the field." 



JOAN OF ARC. 147 

Whatever skeptics may have decided in regard to this inno- 
cent child and her " voices," it seems to me as a rational con- 
clusion that these voices fully correspond to those heard by 
Samuel as a child, by Abraham, by the Shepherds, by Saul, by 
John, and, indeed, by many now known as mediums, both in 
ancient and modern times. But, as you are aware, the voices 
heard by Joan, and those heard by similarly gifted individuals 
in the present day, are popularly denounced as " hallucinations," 
" the reflections of one's own mind," etc. And those who dare 
to profess a belief in the possible universality of such phe- 
nomena ; or, in other words, those who believe in the production 
of like results under like conditions, at all times and in all ages, 
through the operation of unalterable and eternal law, are ostra- 
cized and persecuted to the utmost verge of malignity that the 
advancing spirit of the race will allow. And yet God's truth 
remains the same, eternal law continues unalterable, these phe- 
nomena still occur, and a few aspiring souls bask in the sunlight 
of the glorious truths resultant from these facts in nature. 

In this connection, allow me to make a partial digression for 
the purpose of mentioning that I recently read in a reliable 
paper a statement that when our late lamented, but arisen, 
President, Gen. Garfield, was a lad of only six or seven years 
of age, while out at play, he saw his father, then deceased, and 
talked with him ; that among other things his father told him 
that, if he would be a good boy, he would make a great man of 
him, and then disappeared. The boy then ran into the house 
and inquired : " AYhere is father ? " His mother was surprised, 
and asked him what he meant. He told her what he had 
seen and heard, saying that he knew his father was in the 
house. The paper further stated that it had the intelligence 
from reliable parties who were at that time neighbors of Mrs. 
Garfield, and had often heard the circumstances alluded to by 
the members of the family. " It is, therefore," adds the editor, 
"no newspaper sensation, but one of the facts of Spiritualism, 
for which we have a scientific explanation." 



148 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

I may mention further that I am myself aware of a little 
girl in Baltimore, under ten years of age, who has been in the 
habit for years of holding daily conversation with her mother, 
deceased when she was an infant. She was accustomed every 
day, when at home, to watch the clock for a certain hour, upon 
the arrival of which she would at once leave the rest of the 
family that she might go, as she said, and " talk with her mother 
in Heaven." Some officious friends, of course, remonstrated 
with the grandmother, saying that the child would undoubtedly 
become deranged. But the more sensible grandmother replied 
that it did the child no harm, but seemed to contribute materi- 
ally to her happiness. She refused, therefore, to interfere in 
the matter, although the whole family were members of an 
orthodox church. 

And, again, there is a dear little girl in our city, known per- 
haps to quite a number who hear me, who has been in the habit 
of seeing and conversing with spirits for years, having seen and 
recognized her deceased father at the early age of two years. 
She is now about thirteen. During the intervening years she 
has possessed this faculty, and being fortunately a member of a 
warm-hearted and spiritually developed family, she has herself 
been developed into a medium for independent voices. There 
are some, doubtless, in my audience who, like myself, have had 
the pleasure of attending her seances. God bless our dear 
mediums, young and old. 

But, to resume. Gifted with a native intelligence, although 
unlettered, — pure, fervent, and elevated, — the Maid of Orleans 
began at an early age to live a second life within her laborious 
outer life, a life which all philosophical mediums of the present 
day, and of all time, know to be the most absorbing, the life of 
the soul. This sentiment of sanctity and holiness, characteristic 
of the medieval centuries, pervaded her whole nature. She 
fasted often, and fasted long, thus superinducing the medium- 
istic conditions to which I have referred, in a manner not 
unfamiliar in the present day. Absorbed and exalted in spirit, 



JOAN OF ARC. 149 

mysterious sounds often thrilled in her ears, whilst her commu- 
nications with her unseen visitors were naturally more or less 
colored by her educational faith and that of the age in which 
she lived. On one occasion, when thirteen years of age, it is 
recorded of her, she was meditating alone in the garden, when 
suddenly a great light broke upon her, and she heard a voice 
speaking out of it, saying : " Jeanne, be thou a good child and 
frequent at church, for the King of Heaven hath chosen thee 
to restore France." 

In this connection it may be mentioned, also, that her father 
dreamed upon one occasion that she was leaving, to go away 
with the men-at-arms. Was this dream of her father's one of 
her hallucinations ? 

Again, Brother Richard, a mendicant friar, learned from his 
visions and declared that " a maid would arise and liberate 
France." Could the vision of Brother Hichard have been like- 
wise one of the maid's hallucinations, or the reflection of her 
own soul, as is alleged with regard to the phenomena that 
attended her throughout the important experiences of her brief 
career ? But, alas, the minds who repudiate the spiritual origin 
of the phenomena attending the Maid of Orleans in the fifteenth 
century are of the same class with those who deny the facts 
claimed by the spiritual school of today ; and, with regard to 
the occurrences of both periods, these opponents will accept 
any substitute, any explanation, however absurd or improbable, 
rather than recognize a demonstrated truth relating to the 
nature and destiny of the human soul which may happen to be 
foreign to the familiar and popular groove of ethical thought 
chiseled out by the accepted authorities of an earlier and a 
darker period in the intellectual history of the race. 

Two or three years passed with the little maiden without any 
marked incident, except that the voices, as she termed them, 
continued. She grew into a fine, intrepid girl, handsome, inde- 
fatigable, and strong. She was, moreover, sweet-voiced and 
affectionate, docile and industrious. Her voices comforted and 



150 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

encouraged her continuously. Not by weary seeking, high or 
low, says her biographer, did she realize what she esteemed as 
the Divine presence, but by trusting never to be left, never 
forsaken, never to ask and to go unanswered, never to weep 
and be uncomforted. This was her faith, her sure and stead- 
fast hope. And it would be far better for us of the present 
day if we felt a higher confidence in our voices, and in the 
loving presence of God's ministering angels ; far happier for us 
if we, like the Maid of Orleans, could drink in continualhT^ the 
blessed influences of an abiding and holy trust. Notwithstand- 
ing her great confidence, however, the young maiden very 
naturally shrank at times from the attempt to execute the im- 
portant mission assigned her by the voices which had so con- 
stantly attended her from her earliest years to her now budding 
womanhood. The well known mission predicted for her execu- 
tion was "the saving of France from its then prostrated condi- 
tion, and the crowning of King Charles at the city of Rheims." 
The importance of the work before her, and the improbabilities 
of its completion, may be realized when it is known that Charles 
was not even in possession of Rheims at the time of the predic- 
tion, and indeed that Orleans was the only town of importance 
then remaining to the king of France ; and in Orleans he had 
long been besieged by the English when Joan was assigned the 
duty of saving him and the nation from threatened destruction. 
She would at first often weep in regard to the task before her, 
and plead that she knew nothing of war. The voices, however, 
answered her upon one of these occasions as follows : " What 
God bids thee, do without fear. St. Catharine and St. Marga- 
ret will teach and help thee." 

At length, inspired by her voices, and imbued with a holy 
devotion and an unflinching courage, she departed from her 
childhood's home upon the doubtful and appalling mission 
before her, — a mission for a maiden which certainly no base- 
less vision could have incited, no mere hallucination have 
enforced. Through dangers and difficulties she succeeded in 



JOAN OF ARC. 151 

entering the town of Orleans, and in presenting herself before 
the king. Among the evidences of the authenticity of her mis- 
sion and of the supermundane character of the agencies under 
whose direction she was acting, she revealed to Charles, in a 
private interview had with her, "the purport and manner of an 
unspoken prayer'' which had occupied his mind while in retire- 
ment, prior to her arrival. Could this, it may well be asked, 
likewise, have been done through the "reflection of her own 
soul," or by any method of " hallucination " whatever, whilst she 
was miles distant from the king whom she had never seen at 
the time of his silent devotion ? 

In obedience to her voices, she likewise informed the king 
that, in the conflicts that were about to take place, she must 
bear a certain ancient sword with five crosses on the blade, 
which she declared was buried behind the altar in the Church 
of St. Catharine, in a town where it was known the maid had 
never been, and requested that it might be sent for. An armorer 
was despatched, with the description, in search of it. The eccle- 
siastics of the church knew nothing of any such weapon ; but 
they caused search to be made in the place indicated by the maid, 
and an ancient sword was found, marked as she had said, and 
very rusty with long lying in the ground. 

This, too, I presume, will be classed among the hallucinations 
of the maid by those whose eyes are persistently closed to the 
truth. 

Before Joan could succeed in establishing in the minds of 
others a similar confidence in her mission to that entertained by 
herself, she was subjected to the severest interrogations, the 
most unkind criticisms, as well as ridicule and insult on the part 
of the learned men of the day, both of the Church and of the 
world. But, although unable to read or write, she was equal 
to them ail in the address and wisdom of her replies. So that 
even those who still denied the validity of her claims to inspira- 
tion were compelled to admit her wonderful powers of ratiocina- 
tion, as well as her integrity of character, honesty of purpose, 



152 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

and an earnest faith, on her own part, in the voices and in the 
intelligence that guided her. And in these particulars, likewise, 
I think it will not be denied that the analogy which I have 
claimed as existing between the experiences of the French maiden 
of the fifteenth century and certain similarly gifted individuals 
of the nineteenth is unmistakably continued. For, surely, no 
class of the community is subjected to more unwarrantable and 
annoying interrogations, or more unkind and unnecessary criti- 
cism, than have been the mediums of modern times, — and, I 
may add, with similar convictions in most cases as to the validity 
of their claims. 

Finally, Charles himself became convinced, as he declared, 
that " to doubt Joan, and set her aside, would be to render myself 
unworthy of the succor of God." And, at length, by his orders, 
the inspired and intrepid maiden was furnished with the state 
and attendance of a military commander, and assumed her posi- 
tion as one of the chief officers of the war with the same ease 
as she had assumed her martial equipments. Without a doubt 
in the voices that guided her, with no fear of stumbling or stray- 
ing in her steps, it is recorded, she took up the commanding 
tone and perilous duties of a leader. By the lightning of her 
own pure faith and enthusiasm, she kindled a flame of energetic 
patriotism throughout France that flashed and rose victoriously 
for the king and for the nation. But, alas, owing to the igno- 
rance, the bigotry, and the treachery by which she was sur- 
roundedj this flame fell and destroyed herself. No, she was not 
destroyed ; but, through the fire and flame of persecution, her 
noble spirit passed into a closer union with her beloved voices 
in another and a better life ; from wlience we, likewise, may 
hear melodious and instructive voices, if we will but listen and 
allow our hearts to take heed. 

Joan of Arc, as you are aware, was burned alive in the mar- 
ket place at Rouen, on the 30th day of May, 1431, having been 
condemned as a sorceress. This was done at the instance of 
the Duke of Bedford, of England, — a dreadful blot on the 



JOAN OF ARC. 153 

character of a man whose life had hitherto been more than 
ordinarily blameless. 

Such persecution, more or less severe, has been, alas, the fate 
of the world's saviors almost universally, whether upon the 
physical, the intellectual, or spiritual plane of action. But, let 
us hope that, in the organic progress of the race, such tenden- 
cies of the general mind are gradually modifying. Indeed, we 
know such modification exists in our own land, at least ; but, 
alas, it is but a modification instead of an extinction of the 
dreadful spirit of hate for opinion's sake, which, in the ages that 
have past, originated, and for centuries perpetuated, the gibbet, 
the guillotine, and the stake. In our day, and in our land, how- 
ever, we are cursed as yet with social ostracism and. theological 
malediction against all who labor for the redemption of the race 
from the thralldom of other and darker centuries.' Yet, thank 
God, we have a host of noble women in our day, as well as men, 
who, upon the rostrum and elsewhere, are battling for the rights 
of humanity. And, indeed, those women who are struggling 
for the equality of women before the law, for the rights of the 
wives and mothers of the day, and for the general elevation of 
their sex above the deojradation arising from fashionable ineffi- 
ciency on the one hand, and enforced sensual servitude on the 
other, are worthy successors of the beautiful Maid of Orleans. 
She assumed a military garb, and, inspired by her voices, fought 
upon a material plane for her king, her country, and her home. 
The heroines of today, inspired from angel life, both consciously 
and unconsciously, and impelled by the nobleness of their own 

natures, 

" Have put on 
The surest armor anviled in the shop 
Of passive fortitude," 

and are battling, each according to her own conception of 
right, for the permanent welfare of the race, and in behalf of 
the dawning truths of the hour. As yet, they are met, for the 
most part, with ostracism, persecution, and calumny ; but, still. 



154 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

the magnetism of tlie truths they utter is winning its way. In 
the great battle of ideas now waging, the opponents and de- 
nouncers of these moral heroines will find themselves eventually 
far in the rear. True, we may not be able to assent to all that 
may be uttered, but we should nevertheless look to the motive, 
and properly estimate the true spirit, of these laborers in the 
reformatory warfare now in progress. The logic of events is 
rapidly bringing about a material change as to the individual, 
social, political, and religious rights of woman. And, in an 
age in which Elizabeth Browning has sung, Charlotte Bronte 
spoken, Harriet Hosmer chiseled, Mary Lyon taught, and Flor- 
ence Nightingale lived ; in a generation in which Lucretia 
Mott, Hannah Brown, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton have suc- 
cessfully labored, — to say naught of many another noble worker, 
- — the cavilers of the day as to woman's fortitude, and the sphere 
of woman's activities, will find that it is too late for the successful 
opposition of either prejudice or custom. Let our sisters, then, 
take courage. Armed with the breastplate of conscious rectitude, 
and crested with the helmet of truth, let them still work on, 
battling, as did the Maid of Orleans, for what they feel in their 
souls to be right, and victory shall yet perch upon their banner, 
and happiness and peace dwell in their households. For "• ever 
the right comes uppermost "; and the door is already standing 
wide open through which woman shall advance to the consum- 
mation of her holiest hopes, and the gratification of all the 
higher impulses of her diviner nature. 

But, to return from this rather natural digression to the im- 
mediate theme of my discourse, I can but endeavor to enforce 
the idea that the so-called voices attendant upon Joan of Arc 
were but the evidences of the ministry of angels, the com- 
munion of departed spirits still interested in what they believed 
to be the welfare of their native land ; and thus, as I feel satis- 
fied, constituting a striking analogy between the experiences of 
the Maid of Orleans and those of many of the mediums of the 
spiritualistic school of the present century. Nor is the history 



JOAN OF AKC. 155 

of Joan of Arc the only similitude to be found in the past to 
the experiences of modern times. History is replete with facts 
and incidents involving the same fundamental idea which con- 
stitutes the basis of modern phenomena, so much repudiated by 
materialistic prejudice on the one hand, and theological bigotry 
on the other. Some clergymen, however, without recognizing 
Spiritualism as a system, have nevertheless recognized and given 
utterance in their pulpits to the very facts and ideas upon which 
Spiritualism legitimately rests. The Rev. Dr. Newman, in a 
sermon delivered in Brooklyn, N. Y., reported in the New York 
Herald of June 30, 1880, said as follows : — 

" Swedenborg was visited by his departed friends, and Wes- 
ley confirmed the fact. Adam Clark entertained the opinion 
that departed spirits returned to earth. Hannah More, when 
dying, extended her arms to embrace some one ; and, calling the 
name of a departed sister, she exclaimed 'Joy!' and expired. 
Such experiences are not uncommon in this our day. Strong pre- 
sumptive arguments may be deduced from the immateriality of 
mind and the oneness of personal consciousness ; but the appear- 
ance of the departed is an unanswerable argument. If we im- 
plicitly believe the Bible record, there should not be left the 
shadow of a doubt. According to that record, five persons returned 
to earth, — three of whoDi had entered the spirit world through 
the portals of the grave, one was translated and returned, and 
one was caught up into the third Heaven. The first who 
returned to earth was Samuel the Prophet ; and what informa- 
tion did he give of the spirit world? That the sainted souls 
are at rest there ; that they have a knowledge of what is taking 
place on the earth ; and that they know the future. What did 
Moses and Elias say ? That they were in their personal identity, 
consciousness, and knowledge, as previous to their departure ; 
that they not only knew what was taking place on earth, but 
had a deep interest therein. From Peter, James, and John we 
learn that there is another life ; that there are mansions of 
delight ; that the inhabitants never die ; and that the angels 
will escort us thither. And we have heard from that spirit land 
through one who was born here, went there, and returned to us, 
and remained on earth from A. D. 44 until June, A. D. 64, — 
a period of twenty years. And what does he say ? That the 



156 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

soul and body are separable; that the soul is conscious in this 
state of separation, and that the body could live (only for a brief 
period under the power of organic life) in the absence of the 
soul. It is contrary to reason, to all our ideas of the character 
of God, to the undying love of our nature, to suppose for one 
moment that those who have left our earth have either ceased 
to live, or are disinterested in our earthly welfare. The highest 
conception of Heaven by some persons is to loaf around the 
throne and play on a golden harp. Rather let me believe that 
the departed ones are still the heroes of earth and time, aiding 
i;s to fight th,e treinendous battle of life." 

Thus spoke, in June, 1880, Rev. Dr. Newman, at one time 
one of the most popular divines that ever ministered to Christian 
needs in Washington. The man spoken of by the doctor, who 
went to the spirit land and returned, remaining on earth for 
twenty years afterwards, was undoubtedly Paul the Apostle. 
If his testimony, together with that of Peter, James, and John 
is to be received on the authority of ancient writings rendered 
doubtful through repeated translations, if from no other cause, 
upon what principle of good sense are we to reject the biogra- 
phy of Joan of Arc, and the history of the age in which she 
figured both as victor and martyr; or, much more, by what 
parity of reasoning shall we denounce similar manifestations in 
the present day, with living, credible witnesses all around us ? 

Again, the Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix, rector of Trinity Church, 
New York, in a sermon on the " Existence of Spirits," delivered 
March, 1876, reported in the New York Herald, Qxpressed his 
views as follows : — 

" Our actual knowledge is not to serve as the total of all that 
may be known. That yoiclisive pot seen a spirit does not prove 
that there are no such things. What a solemn view of life this 
conveys! How greatly must a man's ideas expand when he 
takes this in mind! It is not superstition, but sober reason. We 
have heard of dreams, signs, and omens, as thc}^ were viewed in 
olden times.. We hear, too, of communication with spirits of 
departed friends, warning us of danger. We have all heard of 
strange signs and sounds in vacant houses, where a crime has 



JOAN OF ARC. 157 

< 
been committed. The records of the spiritualistic operations 
in our day show, too, that there is subject for deep considera- 
tion. Doubtless, many of the so-called manifestations are but 
pure nonsense and transparent frauds ; but is it not wiser to 
believe that there are things happening impossible to explain 
except under the doctrine of the supernatural ? " 

The same reverend divine, on a previous occasion, in a ser- 
mon upon the " Communion of Saints," reported in the New 
York Sun, Dec. 10, 1871, urged the importance of communion 
with the departed " as a religious duty," and said : — 

" It should be brought out of the obscurity into which it has 
been allowed to fall, and be made to occupy its proper place as 
one of the great principles of Christianity. At present we are 
divided from the dead by a wall of darkness. This should not 
be ; though not present in the flesh, the dead are with us, though 
in a brighter quarter of Christ's great house ; and we can hold 
communion with them by the observances practiced by the early 
Christian Church, and enjoined by a long line of eminent divines 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church, among whom were Bishop 
Hobart and Bishop Wainwright, of latter days." 

Yet again, the Rev. William Lloyd, pastor of the Madison 
Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, in a sermon delivered 
as early as October, 1869, reported in the New York World, put 
himself on record as follows : — 

" My position, concisely stated, is, 1st, that the invisible uni- 
verse is in close contact with the visible ; 2nd, that the inhabit- 
ants of the spiritual universe are interested in and influentially 
connected with the destiny of the visible ; 3rd, that departed 
human souls are most deeply interested in the spiritual welfare 
of those who remain upon the earth. My arguments are de- 
rived from the Bible. . . . I am not disposed to doubt, much 
less to ridicule, those who claim to have seen visions. The 
a priori wonder is that more do not see them." 

But enough of quotations for the present, or I might continue 
them to a verv great length ; and, indeed, if verbal confessions 



158 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

were proper to be repeated, the list of educated clergymen who 
have confessed to a belief in the fundamental facts of Spiritual- 
ism, as well as in a disbelief in the popular dogmas of the 
Orthodox Church, would prove to be incredihly large, at least to 
those who have given but casual attention to the subject. 

The point which I seek to establish from such testimony is 
that the opinions of the best educated and most highly-cultured 
of the clergy of the day are in harmony with the main features 
of the spiritual school, and that they are in harmony with the 
idea I have endeavored to enforce, as underlying the peculiar 
experiences of Joan of Arc, as a necessary sequence. But, still, 
the less cultured and more superstitious of the Church (which, 
perhaps, constitute the greater number) are denouncing the 
voices and experiences of the Maid of Orleans as "hallucina- 
tions," and the facts and philosophy of the spiritual school as 
delusion and heresy, whilst they continually inflict upon the 
adherents of the same (as far as their power extends) ostracism 
and condemnation in this world, together with damnation and 
eternal misery in the next. 

And yet, all along the pathway of past centuries, in common 
with the age in which Joan of Arc listened to her spirit voices, 
have indications existed of the presence and communion of 
angels, more or l^ss distinct and appreciable. At the dawning 
of the Christian era, and for the first four or five hundred years 
in the history of the Christian movement, it was deemed rank 
heresy to deny the possibility of the appearance of departed 
spirits, and their abiding interest in the affairs of earth. In the 
opening of the fifteenth century, when Europe was about emerg- 
ing from the intellectual and spiritual confusion of the dark 
ages. Brother Eichard of the Catholic priesthood had, as well as 
the Maid of Orleans, his interior visions and his spirit voices ; 
and under certain restrictions the mother Church still recognizes 
the fact of spirit communion. It seems, therefore, to have been 
reserved for the Protestant Church, strangely enough, to be 
guilty of the wonderful inconsistence of proclaiming the inf alii- 



JOAN OF ARC. 159 

bility of the Bible, and at the same time denying the existence 
of spirit manifestations, when that book may be said to be full 
of evidence in favor of their existence. Indeed, extract from 
the Bible its spiritual facts, and what is left ? Naught but what 
the fond mother holds when the pale messenger of organic law 
has taken her baby from her bosom to the arms of the angels, 
— simply its external covering. 

In conclusion, notwithstanding the antagonism of the more 
bigoted portion of the popular churches of the day, voices from 
the spirit land are still heard, and other manifestations still 
continue to be presented with increasing frequency, and in some 
cases with enhanced beauty and power ; aye, with such distinct 
and beneficent persistency that neither the pulpit, the press, nor 
the people have any sure defence against them. In the holiest 
and most receptive hours of the study, in the quiet moments of 
the work shop, the counting room, and even in the street, at 
times, gentle whisperings are often heard from the bright beings 
of another world, as the loved and long declared lost ones, to 
whom our fondest affections still cling, hover around us, both 
seen and unseen, seeking to drop into the mind blessed assur- 
ances of their undying love, together with cheering and rational 
thoughts concerning the mysterious and beauteous world where 
they reside, and its relations to this. .So that it requires no 
prophetic endowment, as it seems to me, to bespeak for Spirit- 
ualism universal acceptance ; indeed, it is becoming more and 
more apparent to all who are not willfully blind to the general 
tendency of thought in this direction that our glorious faith 
(independent of whatever ridicule or opposition it may yet 
have to encounter) is destined eventually to 

" Weave its fame a rainbow round the sun, 
And clasp its thought a girdle round the world." 



LECTURE IX. 

HUMAN DESTINY, 
CONSIDERED FROM THE STANDPOINT OP SPIRITUALISM. 



WHENCE AND WHITHER. 

To matter or to form 

The all is not confined; 
Beside the law of things 

Is set the law of mind. 
One speaks in rock and star, 

And one within the man ; 
In unison at times, 

And then apart again ; 
But both in one have brought us hither, 
That we may know our whence and whither. 

The sequency of law 

We learn through mind alone ; 
We see but outward forms, — 

The soul the one thing known. 
If soul doth speak, we feel 

The voices must be true 
That give these visible things. 

These laws, their honor due; 
And tell of love which brought us hither, 
Which holds the key of whence and whither. 

This love through science plans 
What no known laws foretell ; 

The wandering stars, and fixed, 
Alike are miracle. 

(IGO) 



HUMAN DESTINY. 161 

The so called death of all, 
The life renewed above , 
Are both within the sphere 
Of this all-circling love ; 
The seeming chance that cast us hither 
Accomplishes love's whence and whither. 

" From harmony, from heavenly harmony, 

This universal frame began ; 

From harmony to harmony, 
Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
The diapason closing full in man." 

Thus sings the poet. But, what is man, and whither doth 
he tend ? What am I ? man asks in his moments of reflection. 
Of what strange elements composed 1 — body and spirit, — soul 
and mind. Are the body and external mind the slaves of the 
soul, of the spirit per se, or are they its jailors ? In a normal 
state, we can perceive nothing, seemingly, but what they per- 
mit us to perceive, and through their means must be held all 
communication with things animate and inanimate in this outer 
world. 

From this point of experience the atheist argues ; and yet it 
is a fact that we can close our external eyes, and the intelligent 
principle, the soul, as if free from its hard bondage, can wing 
its flight afar, into the bright blue sky, and question of interior 
realms as to what is between them and ourselves. Can it be 
that man's existence in time is the great pausing point in the 
universe, and that between us and the eternal abodes of life, of 
affection, and of thought, there is one vast void, untenanted and 
inanimate ? Or is yonder wide expanse of air, the stars, the 
heavens, the universe, peopled with beings whom we see not 
with the material eye, spirits divested of earthly trappings, whose 
lives have overleaped the seeming agonies of death, and have 
left their prison-houses of clay behind them ? Are there creat- 
ures of light and joy now sporting in the sunbeams, reveling 
in the azure deDths beyond, or breathing, anon, in the atmos- 



162 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

phere of our homes ? If so, is it not possible that there are means 
of communication between us and them ? Or are our bodies 
unnatural and cruel barriers between the spirits within them and 
the hosts of spirits thronging around us ? 

In the great battle-field of material life we can but feel the 
effects, both in our minds and bodies, of the varying scenes 
through which we are compelled to pass. We can but feel our 
dealings with the rougher side of humanity, the wearisome, con- 
tinuous, yet ever-changing struggle of life displayed all around 
U3 in this peopled earth ; the infinite varieties of selfishness and 
folly, of vice and crime, together with the thousand anxieties 
superadded to loss of health and the means of living incidental 
to the unceasing treadmill of time. "When we look around us 
in the world and see the innocent suffering ; when we see the 
gentle and tender, the noble and true, the gay and sparkling, 
struck down by some withering blast of fortune, or through the 
misdeeds of one to whom they may have looked for happiness and 
support, the heart can but feel saddened, especially when it is 
known their lives have been spent in kindly acts and good deeds 
to their fellow-creatures all around them. And, on the other 
hand, when we see the coarse and the low, the base and the 
licentious, prosperous and successful, and rising on the ruins of 
the pure and the true ; when we see wily schemes and villainous 
intrigues obtaining every advantage, and honesty of purpose and 
rectitude of action frustrated and cast down, — when the human 
mind, I repeat, finds the interrogatories I have propounded un- 
answered, and feels and sees all these painful and incongruous 
conditions abounding throughout Christendom, and in addition 
thereto hears a dreadful death and a fearful hell inculcated as 
among the almost certain possibilities of the near future, the 
appalled intellect labors ineffectually, indeed, to reconcile such 
torturing experiences — both immediate and prospective — with 
either the innate aspirations of the human soul, or the infinite 
attributes and special providences of a God worthy to be adored. 

But the bright and glorious light of spiritual truth is now 



HUMAN DESTINY. 163 

dawning above the hill tops of superstition, of fanaticism, and 
of ignorance, and is shedding an illuminating ray over these 
vexed questions and experiences of the despairing soul, which 
all the theologies of the world, with their pains, penalties, and 
atonements, have certainly failed to reconcile. Spiritualism, 
through the integrity of its facts, and the solidarity of its teach- 
ings, is inculcating loftier conceptions of the nature and office of 
the human soul while encased within the body, together with a 
more just and beautifying apprehension of all the seemingly 
contradictory purposes and experiences of time. It is telling us 
there are no special and arbitrary providences in the dealings of 
the infinite with finite and dependent individualities. It is veri- 
fying continually its own many-voiced proclamation that there 
are no dead in all the gardens of a loving Father. It declares 
that an angry or a jealous God is an incomprehensible anomaly ; 
and that a permanent hell-fire could but be a defacement of the 
economy and the escutcheon of the Infinite. It is peopling the 
upper air and the atmosphere of our homes with bright and 
beautiful spirits, — our own beloved and departed ones, — who 
are the willing messengers of the infinite love, and who are joy- 
ously telling us that earth's living heart, through this glorious 
gospel of the skies, shall yet glow with the fires of love divine, 
as the human mind shall recognize and appreciate its rational 
and consolatory precepts as to the inexorable law of cause and 
effect, with its compensations and retributions, both here and 
hereafter, proportioned to individual effort and desire. 

Indeed, in all the physical, intellectual, and spiritual relations 
of human life Spiritualism may be said to have a correspond- 
ing effect upon the higher pleasures and more exalted faculties 
of the soul to that exercised by the fabled berry of the African 
coast upon all material nourishment taken into the human 
stomach. This berry, it is said, is so delicious that when once 
tasted it imparts its own sweetness to all after food. 

So Spiritualism, in my estimation, when once fully appre- 
ciated, assuages all the ills and sorrows of time, while it sweet- 



164 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

ens all our contemplations as to the prospective conditions of 
the inevitable eternity toward which we are all hastening. 

The theory of the spiritual school touching the organic rela- 
tions of spirit and matter is pre-eminently superior, as I appre- 
hend, to every other system in the entire range of human opinion. 
Similar ideas may have been remotely entertained by other 
schools of thought, perhaps ; but upon the despised phenomena 
of Spiritualism rests the practical demonstration of the true 
relations existing between these two grand principles of the 
universe. 

The celebrated Leibnitz at one time entertained the belief 
that there was a pre-established harmony existing between these 
two principles, matter and spirit ; or, in other words, that 
neither acted upon the other, and that the two were made to 
act in concert. This theory, however, I believe, has been aban- 
doned, and is not seriously advocated at the present time by any 
school. 

Another class of thinkers claim to have deduced that mind, 
or spirit, or soul, — the thinking principle, — is the result of the 
sublimation of matter ; and those organizations believed by so 
many to be the repositories of spiritual truth, and the especial pro- 
mulgators of the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul, 
have really done but little, it must be admitted, to disprove this 
materialistic idea. This theory, however, according to the teach- 
ings of Spiritualism, is wholly incorrect ; and is the result, as it 
seems to me, of the confounding of spiritual substance with the 
functions of spirit, perse, or soul. And this confounding of two 
distinct principles has been the fruitful source of confusion and 
error throughout the entire class of material metaphysicians, 
from Aristotle to Hamilton, or to the distinguished Col. Robert 
G. Ingersoll, who, although faulty, as Spiritualism demonstrates, 
in his conclusions as to the future possibilites of the soul, is 
nevertheless doing much toward liberating the general mind 
from the ecclesiastical thralldom of the past, and in preparing it 
for the reception of those higher truths which his own logic, 



HUMAN DESTINY. 165 

powerful as it is, fails to furnish. The deductions legitimately 
drawn from the phenomena of Spiritualism, however, are des- 
tined, I can but believe, to remodel the entire school of meta- 
physics, establish upon the basis of facts the true relations exist- 
ing between matter and spirit, and hence the origin of thought, 
together with the real functions and true destiny of the human 
soul. 

Carlyle most truthfully says : " A fact is a divine revelation, 
and he who acts contrary to it sins against God." Said Dr. 
Chalmers, with the same import : " It is a very obvious principle, 
though often forgotten in the pride of prejudice and controversy, 
that what has been seen by one pair of human eyes is of force 
to countervail all that has been reasoned or guessed at by a 
thousand human understandings." 

Spiritualism is nature's great gospel of demonstration ; and 
it is upon what we have seen with our eyes and heard with our 
ears, indeed upon unmistakable facts which appeal irresistibly 
to our consciousness through all the senses with which infini- 
tude has endowed us in common with our kind, that, as Spirit- 
ualists, we rely for the truth of our glorious system of philoso- 
phy, which has been so bitterly opposed, but which is cheering 
our hearts amid the tortuous pathways of time, and gilding even 
the portals of the sepulcher with a brilliancy and a beauty 
hitherto unknown. Through these facts Spiritualism has dem- 
onstrated the existence of a spiritual substance essentially dis- 
tinct from what is known as matter, and of a real, substantial, 
spiritual world ; and likewise the existence of man as a spiritual 
being, possessed of a spiritual organization, with spiritual senses 
adapted to spiritual objects as tangibly as are the physical senses 
to material objects. In fine, as taught by Swedenborg, like- 
wise, that the spirit is the man himself, and not some formless 
essence or unsubstantial ghost, as too many have supposed ; 
likewise, that the spirit world is not removed to a distance, as 
has been taught, — somewhere within the realms of space beyond 
the stars, — but that it is here^ everywhere, in and around this 



1Q6 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC, 

material world, at its center and circumference at one and the 
same time ; and that what is true of the earth is true of all 
inhabitedworlds. So that every human being in any world can 
truly say, in common with the children of our own planet, the 
spirit world is here. 

In Christendom, strangely enough, the most charitable decla- 
ration as to spiritual phenomena (or what claim to be such) is 
that they are contrary to the laws of nature. And then, with 
remarkable indifference, the most wonderful and startling facts 
of the age are allowed to pass without further investigation. 
How can such an anomaly exist in the experience and practice 
of the human mind, especially in Christian lands ? Simply 
because, — and I mean no discourtesy by the assertion,— simply 
because, notwithstandino^ all the ecclesiastical teachin<ys of the 
past and present touching the doctrine of immortality, there is 
not in Christendom, as admitted by a recent clerical writer, such 
a satisfactory helief in the existence of a spiritual world that men 
can intelligently conceive of even the possibility of a sign that that 
world is near them. The teachings of Spiritualism, that the spirit 
world is around and about them, and that they themselves are 
now in it — although not yet in the world of spirits distinctively 
— and connected with it as certainly as they ever will be, when 
they have thrown off " the muddy mask of time," is to them a 
matter so inconceivable and ridiculous that it fails to arouse 
their feelings, or in any favorable manner affect their external 
consciousness. And yet, such consolatory ideas are being elimi- 
nated through the instrumentality of Spiritualism ; and through 
its teachings, likewise, the honest and earnest investigator is 
beginning to recognize and appreciate such thoughts and truths 
as are best calculated to elevate the race, together with all those 
high and ennobling virtues and sentiments that can but be more 
or less the legitimate outgrowth of angelic association. For, 
surely 

"As the dark web that whitens in the sun 
Grows pure from being purely shone upon," 



HUMAN DESTINY. 167 

so the human heart can but grow purer, and the human mind 
grow stronger and happier by association with the good and 
true who have gone before, and who yet consent to bathe their 
burnished wings for a while in the troubled waters of an earthly 
tide, in order that we, who still remain in this lower life, may 
have a brighter pathway in time, and that we may likewise gather 
strength for the journey that awaits us all across the Niagara of 
death. And how I wish that, as Spiritualists, we practically 
appreciated the advantages of angelic communication daily, 
together with the absorption of spiritual ideas, especially on the 
part of our children, and the youthful minds that may be brought 
under our guidance and influence. Like a plant that has been 
lifted out of some cold recess in which it has found but the 
elements of a stunted growth, and set to bask in a flood of 
gracious sunshine, is the youthful mind when transplanted from 
the barren plane of sectarianism to the richer and more prolific 
soil of spiritualistic culture. The plant grows more and more 
beautiful under the nourishing influence that has been brought 
to bear upon it, and repays the sunshine with its most fragrant 
blossoms. So with the human mind, — and especially with 
young life, — when nourished and enriched by the consciousness 
of angelic love, and the sweet influence of spiritualistic concep- 
tions. The inner life develops consciously, the mind grows in 
wisdom, and all the finer qualities of our nature unfold one by 
one, as delicate flowers unfold themselves under the sweet in- 
fluences and the invigoratinoj kisses of the sunlio;ht. 

We are further taught that man, as a resident in the earthly 
form, is naturally a progressive being, not totally depraved, as 
has been declared for centuries, but imperfect, designedly so ; 
and that the experiences of the earth life are God's methods 
for his spiritual individualization and education, all of which 
will have their legitimate influence upon surrounding conditions 
amid the immortal realities of the succeeding spheres of exist- 
ence. That with all the faculties with which man has been 
endowed, he has not the power of attaining to the perfect, 



168 UI^ANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

only the ability and the desire of reaching out after the perfect. 
And that all the members of the human family are so linked 
together by the creative will of the Infinite that the lower in 
the general scale of universal progress are more or less continu- 
ally dependent upon the higher as to their mental and moral 
growth ; the higher, through successive spheres, being the inter- 
mediate agents of that Divine Beneficence and Wisdom that 
originated and sustains us all. That no man could live isolated 
in thought and feeling from his kind, for " thought and feeling 
are the vital activities of the soul." And that, indeed, every 
mind is in some sense indissolubly connected with all other 
minds. 

.In illustration, it has been said by those presumed to have 
some knowledge of the laws of nature that, " if I venture to 
displace, by even the billionth part of an inch, the microscopical 
speck of dust which lies now upon the point of my finger, I have 
done a deed which shakes the moon in her path, which causes 
the sun to be no longer the sun of yesterday, and which alters 
forever the destiny of the myriads of stars that roll and glow 
in the majestic fields of immensity ! " 

So, also, scientists tell us that a single drop of water let fall 
into the bosom of the Atlantic ocean, imperceptibly, but none 
the less certainly, agitates every other drop in that vast body 
of water. 

So, likewise, is it with each individuality in the great ocean 
of mentality. Each mind, either consciously or unconsciously, 
is perpetually influencing and being influenced by every other 
mind. Every mind being necessarily an emanation from and, 
so to speak, a part of the Omniscient Mind of the universe, all 
are so intimately and sympathetically conjoined that no one 
mind can at any time act separately and wholly independent 
of every other mind. I say all minds being necessarily a part 
of the Omniscient Mind — because, if God be infinite in knowl- 
edge, man's knowledge must he God's knowledge in some sense, 
however finiielg expressed; and, hence, the connection of mind 



HUMAN DESTINY. 169 

with mind is indissoluble. The death, decay, and decomposition 
of the physical body cannot possibly contravene this fact, or 
abrogate this law of nature. Hence, communion of spirits, or 
disinthralled minds, in some manner, or by some method, with 
those who still remain within the sphere of earth, instead of 
being an impossibility, as declared by the opponents of Spiritu- 
alism, is absolutely a necessity of man' s being. It is man's living 
connection, therefore, with the angel realm immediately sur- 
rounding him that enables him to enjoy more essentially and 
extensively the loftier faculties of perception, or the higher 
powers of analytical thought ; interior minds, with whom he is 
en rapport, in like manner receiving mental and moral influ- 
ences from still higher sources successively throughout the vast 
illimitable spheres of spirit existence. 

Independent of legitimate deductions drawn from the facts 
of Spiritualism touching the continued progress of humanity to 
which I have referred, it may be said in this connection that 
" the best prophet of the future is the past," since a retrospect- 
ive glance at the history of a man as a physical being and an 
aspiring thinker clearly enforces the general idea of universal 
progress, here and hereafter, as the divine method, through 
which the innate possibilities of the soul shall ultimately culmi- 
nate in happiness to the entire human family. The idea, too, 
is as beautiful and philosophical as it is natural, to which many 
of our best writers have frequently referred. Man enters this 
world a helpless infant, an immortal germ, in the arms of his 
mother. She it is who in loving tenderness first kisses the dew 
of heaven from the lips of her gentle babe, and inhales their 
elysian sweetness. The first cherub smile that plays upon 
those rosy lips are hers, and from her generous bosom this 
frail promise of the future angel draws its physical nourishment. 
Man in this primal state has but one desire, and that is supplied 
by maternal love. Soon he grows beyond the infantile state, 
and leaves his mother's breast. The wide world is now before 
him. His second mother, the generous old earth, as did the 



170 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

first, supplies him from her prolific bosom with every means of 
gratification for his increased desires and appetites, proportioned 
to individual effort. In the language of modern inspiration, 
man grows upon what he feeds, mentally, morally, and physic- 
ally ; his interior capacities begin to manifest themselves ; aspi- 
rations, sentiment, love, put forth their efforts ; the energies of 
an innate divinity that projected and animated the germ begins 
at the accumulation and appropriation of knowledge not neces- 
sary for self-conservation on earth ; thoughts take an upward 
and an onward flight, and imagination, the beautiful mediatrix 
of all the several parts of the organism, soars loftily amid all 
those wondrous world's that roll so majestically where ^' seraph's 
wing stirs the zephyrs of eternal morning." And, in time, wis- 
dom asserting her prerogative, an equilibrium is established, as 
through the laws of being and the lessons of nature he learns to 
reason and to hope as to what the future may have in store. 
Thus far in his history he finds he is the creature of a system 
of beneficence whereby all natural desires are but the prophecy 
of gratification. Reasoning from analogy, if sustained likewise 
by the glorious philosophy of Spiritualism, he realizes that all 
the surgings of his inner and better self within its prison house 
of time- — all the longings of his interior nature, for which the 
earth has no satisfactory response — may yet be explained and 
gratified under the law of progress, of which he is unmistakably 
the creature, and of which he has been the subject since birth. 
This glorious philosophy, from the experiences of those who 
have preceded him to the higher life, further teaches him that 
his ability to improve his spiritual nature is unlimited ; that the 
more truly he improves and progresses in time the more readily 
may he advance hereafter ; and that, when he shall leave the 
plane of the earthly for that of the spiritual, he will find that 
progress, even in an accelerated ratio, is both the theory and the 
practice in the future glorious home of the soul ; and that there 
is no cessation of existence or arrest of this law throughout the 
countless cycles of eternity. 



HUMAN DESTINY. 171 

I am well aware that this conception of man's proximity to 
angel life, and of his progress beyond the grave, is contrary to 
the general teachings from the orthodox pulpits of the day, as 
it undoubtedly contravenes all dogmas hitherto recognized as to 
fixed conditions beyond the grave. The world has been told 
for centuries that heaven is a place, and that it is at a remote 
distance from the material universe, somewhere outside of and 
beyond the solar and astral systems, and that death determines 
irrevocably the fate of all, either in heaven or in hell. We are 
told that when the good die they go direct to heaven. How 
extremely absurd such declarations seem, even when viewed in 
the light of material science, independent of the revealments of 
Spiritualism ? For instance, within the reach of telescopic vis- 
ion, science declares, are fifty to seventy-five millions of central 
suns, each with a universe of planets similar to our own solar 
system revolving around them. Some of these suns are believed 
to give forth sixty times, as much light as does our sun, whilst 
our sun is one million four hundred times larger than the earth 
we inhabit, which is twenty-five thousand miles in circumfer- 
ence, as you are aware. How many more of these central 
suns there are besides the millions known is, of course, beyond 
conjecture. The distance of these central suns or stars from 
the earth science determines by calculations founded on paral- 
lax. Parallax is defined as the difference between the position 
of a body as seen from the earth's surface and its position as seen 
from some other conventional point. The nearest known star 
( Centauri, in the Southern hemisphere) is estimated to be twenty 
million million miles from the earth. There are about a dozen 
others known of which the distance ranges from two to Jive 
times this number of miles, whilst all others are situated at 
distances much farther. Indeed, astronomy has discovered such 
an inconceivable number of suns and worlds dispersed through- 
out the vast regions of the material universe that it is asserted 
the annihilation of the globe we inhabit, with the sun that illu- 
minates it, and all the planets that compose our solar system, 



172 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

would leave no greater chasm in sidereal creation, comparatively, 
than the removal of a grain of sand from the sea-shore, or a 
drop of water from the Atlantic ocean. Further, according to 
the calculation of the distinguished astronomer, Herschel, if a 
person should start from the earth and travel with the velocity of 
light two hundred thousand miles per second, it would require owe 
million nine hundred thousand years for him to reach the outer 
limit of the material universe already discovered. In view 
of these scientific facts, as I have remarked, how extremely 
absurd and comfortless is the orthodox idea of heaven, located 
outside the domain of facts and of human appreciation, and 
existing alone in the realm of speculation? In the light of such 
a baseless and hopeless faith, in what part of this majestic 
universe can father Adam and mother Eve be at this time, 
supposing them to have started heavenward early in the morn- 
ing of creation, according to the Mosaic account ? They can- 
not be supposed to have known much of the laws of spiritual 
locomotion, and hence we may conceive have not been traveling 
with any greater velocity than that of light ; consequently, they 
have by this time attained only the one three hundred and six- 
teenth part of the way, whilst Elijah in his chariot of fire may 
be likewise still journeying through the trackless air. These 
travelers heavenward have accomplished at most only six 
thousand years, and have yet to travel for one million eight 
hundred and ninety-four thousand years before reaching the end 
of the journey assigned departed souls by the popular theology 
of the day. No wonder that believers in so remote a habitation 
for our beloved find it difficult to recosrnize the fact of ansjelic 
communion as taught by the spiritual school. 

Now, is it not far more rational to believe, as demonstrated 
by the phenomena, and as recognized by most of the best 
thinkers of this school, that the spiritual universe surrounds and 
interpenetrates each and all material worlds ? And is it not a 
glorious conception that there is no incalculable void between 
this world and that to which we are hastening ? May we not, 



HUMAN DESTINY. 173 

therefore, readily believe that there is nowhere iu God's wide 
domain of beneficence any dividing gulf over which angelic love 
and symj^athy may not pass? Indeed, is not this a mighty 
thought, likewise, " that so-called space is filled with advaucing 
worlds, peopled with progressive souls, a series of worlds inter- 
volved, material and spiritual, the greater holding the less, and 
one illimitable and incomprehensible globe encompassing the 
whole as it floats in the ocean of infinitude " ? 

And is it not a consolation and a joy to reflect upon the 
assurance which Spiritualism thus gives that the sphere of life 
into which we shall enter amid the vast congeries of worlds to 
which I have referred, immediately upon leaving the body, is in 
such proximity and rapport with the grand old earth and all its 
endearments that, instead of being transported to remote and 
unknown regions of incalculable distance, far away from the 
loves and sympathies of time, and far above any interest in the 
life-line of those with whom we have been linked for years in 
the fondest ties of reciprocal affection ; that, on the contrary, 
even whilst our friends are laying away the casket we have 
left, we may, with the assistance of the beloved ones who will 
welcome us to the ethereal realm, be enabled to dry the falling 
tear and soothe the sorrowing heart ; aye, through the agency 
of the despised phenomena of Spiritualism, we shall be empow- 
ered to reach across the imaginary but (to many) terrible chasm 
excavated between time and eternity by speculative theology, 
and again cheer our beloved and bid despondency depart from 
the hearthstone ? The natural wish, likewise, expressed by many 
of the children of earth, to revisit it at some future time in the 
progress of years, through this glorious philosophy, is to be grati- 
fied by us, and is being gratified by those who have preceded us, 
every day and hour, as the laws of attraction and development 
warrant. The consciousness of this great fact, that the beloved 
and the departed are ever near us, is yet to become the most 
efficient lever in the world's redemption from sin and sorrow. 

Again, we learn from this glorious system of philosophy tbat 



174 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

all these concentric ethereal realms encircling the planets, the 
solar and astral systems, of which I have briefly spoken, are all 
teeming with angelic life — immortal souls of men and women, 
at some time inhabitants of this and of other earths — as matter 
below man is teeming with infusorial life ; all of these below 
tending upward toward man, as man is ever tending upward 
toward the unappreciable beatitudes of archangel and celestial 
glory. The law of progress marks the stately stepping of 
infinitude throughout the entire realm of matter and of mind. 
Everything, we are told, from the aboriginal granite, is evolv- 
ing something higher, and all ultimating in the organism of 
man. Thus, the rocks into metals, the metals into mineral 
earths, these into suns, these into vegetation, vegetation into 
animal life, and animal life through various grades to its highest 
type, humanity ; and the human form possessed generically of 
an immortal soul, susceptible of those faculties of love and wis- 
dom which invest the spiritual man in a finite sense with the 
nature and attributes of the Deific Soul of the universe. 

Thus, then, this glorious gospel of Spiritualism — based as it 
is upon a dispensation of facts — teaches that the external body 
of man is the ultimate of all the material kingdoms that have 
preceded it in the grand triumphal march of evolving matter, — 
a wonderful microcosm of the vast majestic macrocosm by which 
it is surrounded ; and that the interior or spiritual man, with all 
his wonderful possibilities, is the undeviating prophecy of all 
the glorious beatitudes that crowd the teeming womb of an un- 
ending future ; that his physical body, therefore, is but an out- 
side shell or covering, adapted to the conditions of the earth 
life, which, having been elaborated from the rocks, will, after 
dissolution, decompose into its original elements ; but that 
the spirit or soul, the real man, the divine principle, which 
makes the conscious man of thought, of feeling, and of angel 
aspiration, will live on in an endless progression of wisdom, and 
in a boundless succession of altitudes in love and happiness, his 
identity unchanged, his conscious individuality perpetuated for- 



HUMAN DESTINY. 175 

ever, amid the infinite cycles of eternity, where '' sceptered 
angels hold their residence." And thus, through the law of 
universal progress. Spiritualism truly " weaves a woof of hope 
around the heart of despair, and winds its warp within the 
storied temple of immortality." For, in the inculcation of the 
idea of the perpetuity of individual consciousness and individual 
affection beyond the grave, and the doctrine of universal prog- 
ress forever, this system, more than any other the world has 
ever known, offers consolation in the storehouse of the future 
to the darkest soul in deepest misery, without thereby doing 
violence to the laws of being, or in any wise detracting from the 
infinite attributes ascribed to Deity. Born into the inner life 
by an immediate resurrection from the body, God's multitudes 
of children — in the ratio of individual effort and desire — soar 
around the concentric spheres of love and wisdom, whilst their 
choral melodies reverberate amid the arches of the sky, hearts 
beating in unison with hearts, soul answering to soul, as the 
universe of mind is echoing with the melody of human love and 
human sympathy ; and all those broad plains, " where angels 
walk and seraphs are the wardens," forever bespeak the grandeur 
and glory of progressive and still progressing thought. 

Viewed from the standpoint of vSpiritualism, then, all advanced 
spirits tell us, man has entered upon an endless pathway of pro- 
gression of which his life here is but one of its ascending grada- 
tions. Inherently divine and immortal from the nature of his 
origin, as an individualized entity, he shall live on as long as 
God shall live, forever advancing, and forever unfolding loftier 
capacities, higher purposes, and brighter felicities. " His pred- 
ecessors in time are still before him in this angel-trod pathway. 
The residue of his earthly existence, and the broad experience 
of unending development, lie between his earthly desires and 
the grand temple of truth, which, in its absoluteness, he may ever 
approach, but never reach. Bright spirits of the beloved and 
the departed are his pilots, and are forever beckoning him up- 
ward and onward. Forever striving to soothe him in his sor- 



176 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

rows, sympathize with him in his joys, and advise with him in 
his doubts and difficulties." And the angelic injunction is that 
our aspirations and our efforts should ever be for a higher and 
still higher appreciation of the right, as it appertains to ourselves 
and our surroundings in every department of human thought and 
action, squaring our lives individually by all those ennobling prin- 
ciples comprehended in the universal brotherhood of man, com- 
mon motherhood of nature, and eternal fatherhood of God. 

In conclusion, my friends, thus possessed of so grand and 
glorious a philosophy, of so beautiful and beautifying a religion, 
independent of the anathemas of ecclesiasticism, unsubdued by 
the ridicule of the press, or the ostracism of society, and un- 
daunted by the theologically threatened tortures of eternity, the 
true Spiritualist, constantly sustained by the ministry of angels, 
" can march on in the beauty of conscious rectitude, and in the 
strength of the invigorating spirit of truth ; on, though we march 
over the graves of the most reverend errors, and disturb the 
repose of the most crippled, grey, and upholstered wrongs of 
antiquity ; on, though we track straight through the greenest 
pastures of pet falsehoods, and the ripest orchards of our cher- 
ished prejudices ; on, for the ever-renewing prize of the never- 
ending labor ; whilst cowards sink supine in the refuge of false- 
hood, and bigots are locked in the close prison-house of sectarian 
thought." Ever gratefully remembering that 

" A God of holy love may yet be known, 
A God who rules creation as his own; 
Without a power to hinder or delay 
While nature moves in its appointed way ; 
A God with but one plan, one grand design, 
In which all systems, suns, and spheres combine ; 
Whilst man, the crowning apex of the whole, 
Through laws eternal, shall his powers unfold ; 
For, as these worlds revolve their tireless rouuds, 
Man, still advancing, hath no spheres or bounds ; 
But while unending ages onward roll, 
No power can stay the progress of the soul." 



LECTURE X. 

THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE APOSTLES. 

The waves of time, in the rolliog revelry of death, are con- 
stantly kissing the white shores of eternity. Spiritualists should 
ride these waves, however tempestuous they may seem at times, 
UDdismayed, and with a sweet serenity, confident as they are, 
through the ministry of angels, of a secure and happy harbor 
when the golden gate of death shall have been passed forever. 
For, indeed, 

"A voice within us speaks that startling word, — 
'Man, thou shall never die ! ' Celestial voices 
Hymn it around our souls ; according harps, 
By angel fingers touched, when the mild stars 
Of morning sang together, sound forth still 
The song of our great immortality." 

Permit me to invite your attention to the following texts, 
2 Peter, ch. i., vs. 13, 14, 15: "Yea, I think it meet, as long 
as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in 
remembrance ; knowing that shortly I must put off this my 
tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. More- 
over, /will endeavor that ye may be able, after my decease, to 
have these things always in remembrance." 

In this connection, please bear in mind, likewise, the declara- 
tion of Paul, 1 Cor., ch. xv., v. 44 : " There is a natural body, 
and there is a spiritual body." Or, as the Greek reads : " There 
is a soma psuehehon, and there is a soma pneumatikon'^ ; a bet- 
ter rendering of which would be, there is an animal body, and 

(177) 



178 UK ANSWER ABLE LOGIC. 

there is a spiritual body. For the spiritual body is as much 
the result of the operation of natural law as is the outer form, 
a fact too frequently lost sight of in Christendom. 

From the text in the Epistle of Peter, first cited, allow me to 
remark at the outset, it has been strangely and improperly 
argued that there is to be a decease or death of that intelligent 
ego which announces he must shortly put off the tabernacle of 
the body. But the term death, as commonly understood in 
Christendom, is not a correct signification of the original word. 
The Greek word in the text, translated decease, is exodos, which, 
properly translated, means the very opposite of the term death, 
as interpreted by theologians. Its meaning, as is well known, 
is "to move out," "to depart." It is, therefore, evident that 
Peter believed that the occurrence called death, in his case, was 
to be his departure from the tabernacle of the body, which is pre- 
cisely what Spiritualism teaches with regard to all humanity, and 
in which it is opposed by the majority of churches today. 

Permit me to offer, further, a few thoughts which have been 
suggested to my mind by the texts which I have repeated in 
your hearing, and which certainly, as I have said, seem to har- 
monize in a remarkable manner with the deductions drawn from 
the facts of Spiritualism. 

" Universal instinct is transcendent law," said an Eastern sage, 
very truthfully ; and the instincts of humanity in all ages and 
among all people point to no one item of faith with greater 
undeviating precision than to the doctrine of immortality. The 
Hindoos, from time immemorial, the Egyptians, Persians, Chi- 
nese, Greeks, Romans, Aztecs, and the North American Indians, 
all, in some sense, believed in a future state when first visited 
by travelers from Christendom. And yet it is loudly pro- 
claimed upon the authority of the orthodox interpreters of the 
Bible that Jesus Christ brought life and immortality to light, 
and many, in the face of history and without due reflection, 
actually believe the declaration. ; whilst orthodox theology arro- 
gantly assumes to consign all who do not thus believe to irre- 



THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE APOSTLES. 179 

mediable woe in an endless hell. It is true that during the 
time of Jesus the doctrine of immortality was first incorporated 
into the faith of the Jews as a subject of revelation. But, it is 
equally true that all the rest of the world, well nigh, had recog- 
nized the doctrine of a future life before Jesus was born, and, 
indeed, some of them before the Jews had an alphabet. The 
Vedas of India, the sacred books and hieroglyphs of Egypt, 
the Zend-a-Vesta of Persia, the scrolls of Assyria, the philoso- 
phies of Greece and of Rome, and even the fetichistic symbols 
of savage life, were replete with beatific recognitions of the idea 
of immortality long before Jesus gave practical illustration of 
his spiritual individuality in his personal appearance to his 
apostles and others after his crucifixion ; which appearances, by 
the way, seem to be so sadly misunderstood by his professed fol- 
lowers of today, — for, in the creeds of most of the churches of 
the present age is to be found the following declaration : " I 
believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." 
And this is the general faith of Christendom, based upon the 
supposed material resurrection of Jesus. 

To this faith of Christendom the spiritual school is most 
decidedly opposed ; and in this opposition we are sustained by 
innumerable unmistakable facts in nature accessible to all ; by 
the known laws of matter of which the human body is com- 
posed ; and by the very book itself from which the doctrine 
of a material resurrection is said to be derived. But, independ- 
ent of the latter testimony, the facts of Spiritualism, harmoniz- 
ing beautifully with the laws of nature, clearly establish the 
utter fallacy of this theological idea. Besides, returning to the 
book, in the words of my text, it is evident, as I have intimated, 
that Peter did not believe in a bodily resurrection, as taught by 
the theologies of today, either as to himself, or as to Jesus of Naz- 
areth. How else shall his declaration be interpreted : " Know- 
ing that I must shortly put off this my tabernacle, even as our 
Lord Jesus Christ has showed me." It is also clearly evident 
that he believed he would be possessed of intelligent spiritual 



180 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

activity after he had put off the tabernacle of the body, — after 
his decease, — after he had taken his exodus from his material 
covering of time. Else, why should he have said to those whom 
he addressed: *' After this [after my decease], /will endeavor 
that^e may be able to have these things always in remembrance.'* 
Certainly, the language of Peter admits of no other interpreta- 
tion, legitimately. 

Again, Luke says, in ch. xxiv., v. 31 : "And their eyes were 
opened, and they knew him not ; and he vanished out of their 
sights And John says, ch. xx., v. 19 : "Then, the same day 
at evening, when the doors were shut, when the disciples were 
assembled, . . . came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith 
unto them, peace be unto you." Again : "After that he appeared 
in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went 
into the country." From these texts, harmonizing with the de- 
clarations of Paul and Peter, as they do, together with others 
that might be quoted, it seems to me quite clearly manifested 
that the theological teachers of the present age are inculcating 
a faith not only at war with the known laws of the material 
universe, but wholly at variance, likewise, with the ideas enter- 
tained by the early followers of Jesus with regard to his resur- 
rection, and which must have been invented after both the Naza- 
rene and his disciples had gone to their guerdon in the skies. 

Believers in the infallibility of the Bible, you are aware, 
object to the alleged phenomena of Spiritualism on the ground 
that they are contrary to both the letter and the spirit of that 
book. Now, the questions we wish to present to such objectors 
in this connection are as follows : Did Jesus live and walk forth 
in another form after his crucifixion, as is stated ? and was he 
seen, under proper conditions, by those who were sutl&ciently 
clairvoyant? and when, either through fright or some other 
cause, those conditions were destroyed, did he " vanish out of 
their sight," as I have just quoted ? Such incidents are foreign 
to the known qualities of mere gross matter. Hence, it is but 
rational to conclude that Jesus of Nazareth, while acting as a 



THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE APOSTLES. 181 

teacher, must have been possessed of an " animal body and a 
spiritual body," as Paul claims for all other men. And after 
the laying aside of his physical body, through what is termed 
death, he must have appeared upon the occasions adverted to in 
a spiritual form, in which he was seen and known only by a 
few. And when he suddenly stood in the midst of the disciples, 
when the doors were shut for fear of the Jews, it must likewise 
have been as an individualized spirit that he entered the closed 
room, since gross matter or material substance, as we have 
learned through modern spiritual phenomena, is no obstruction 
to the locomotion of advanced spirits. But, when he exhibited 
his wounded side and hands for the purpose of convincing the 
doubting Thomas, it must have been in a physical form, — 
materialized for the occasion, but cfe-materialized before he could 
have left that closely-shut apartment. I say such facts must 
have thus occurred, because we are aware of similar phenomena 
occurring in the present day, evidently through such a course of 
procedure on the part of the spirit manifesting ; and the Spirit- 
ualists feel satisfied that those of the past and those of the pres- 
ent were and are alike the result of the harmonious action of 
natural law. With the law of materialization and dematerial- 
ization, however, we are as yet but slightly conversant ; but we 
are not without hope that our knowledge of the same, as with 
laws relating to other phenomena, will increase as honest and 
earnest investigation of this jjeculiar phase shall continue. Thus 
far, with the knowledge already attained, together with its ex- 
tensive observation and experience, the spiritual school, more 
than any other, can recognize the truthfulness of history as 
to the recorded phenomena of other ages, both Pagan and Chris- 
tian, from what has been received through the demonstrations 
of the present dispensation. And through this glorious dispen- 
sation more effectually than through the old we have learned 
that death, so called, is but the severance of the spiritual from 
the earthly body, the disengagement of the spiritual man from 
his fleshly surroundings ; and that this connection having been 



182 UNAl^SWEEABLE LOGIC. 

formed under natural law for the educational and individu- 
alizing purposes of time, under law, likewise, is thus severed. 
Dust returns to dust ; but the spirit, or real man, by this proc- 
ess is born into a higher life, prepared for him, and propor- 
tioned to his individual effort and desire to enter into broader 
activities and diviner possibilities. 

But, in reply to such assumptions on the part of the spiritual 
school, our opponents affirm that there is a vride difference be- 
tween the phenomena recorded in the Bible and those claimed 
for today, however much similarity may appear to exist. Those 
attributed to the prophets and seers of other days, as well as 
those recorded of Jesus and his apostles, it is affirmed, are to be 
considered in the light of miracles, while those of the present 
age, if occurring at all, are to be despised as the work of the 
devil, per se, or, at best, as attributable to the terrible influences 
with which his numerous agents, it is alleged, are empowered 
to torment mankind. 

Just here I can but remark, by way of parenthesis, that those 
theologians who attribute the phenomena of the spiritual school 
alone to the devil and his agents must have a horrible idea, 
indeed, of the God whom they profess to love and to serve. 
For, by such assertion, they practically affirm that there is a 
law in the infinite economy by and through which devils are 
permitted by their fiendish presence to torment the children of 
our common Father, and yet none by and through which angels 
are allowed to cheer us by their nearness and bless us with 
their smiles. Sad, indeed, would be the fate of poor humanity 
if this were true. But it is not true. The continuous presence 
of our angel friends, as messengers of infinite love, are a living 
contradiction of such a terrible blasphemy. 

But let us examine the theological assumption as to the mira- 
cles of the past for a moment or two. A miracle, theologians 
tell us, in effect is a wonder constituted or existing through a 
deviation from the course of nature. And, according to Web- 
ster, a miracle is a supernatural event. Who, then, I may 



THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE APOSTLES. 183 

appropriately inquire, in tlie first place, can determine when a 
miracle is performed, for who, even in this enlightened age, can 
tell what is or what is not above, or a deviation from, the course 
of nature ? And, in the second place, a miracle in this sense, 
Spiritualism affirms, never did and never can exist ; for the 
reason that the laws of this majestic universe are necessarily 
perfect, being in harmony with the infinite attributes of Deity, 
and hence can in no wise be abrogated. To attempt the found- 
ing of a system of religion upon the performance of miracles, 
in a theological sense, therefore, is an impious absurdity, since 
it is an attempt to base such system upon the inharmony of the 
Divine attributes, and consequently taking from Deity that 
which alone renders him infinite. The Spiritualist, therefore, 
ignores altogether the term miracle, in the sense referred to, as 
in anywise applicable to the perfected operations of the divine 
economy. 

But, further, the word miracle, as interpreted by theologians, 
and by Webster, is a mistranslation from the original Greek. 
This word is one of the many adopted into the English language 
from the Latin. The Latin word is miraculum, a noun derived 
from the verb mirari, which means to wonder at. The original 
Greek word, translated miraculum in the Latin and miracle in 
the English, is semeion, and its exact equivalent or meaning is 
not miracle, as this word is understood in the pulpit, but is 
simply sign. 

In the Protestant Bible now in use, and in the new version, 
likewise, the word miracle does not occur in the book of Mat- 
thew at all. It occurs once only in Luke, ch. xxiii., v. 8. It 
occurs twice in Mark, first in ch. vi., v. 52, where it is printed 
in italics, to show that it does not occur in the original Greek, 
but was supplied by the translators ; and in ch. ix., v. 39, where 
it is said : " For there is no man which shall do a miracle in 
my name that can lightly speak evil of me." The phrase in 
this text, which is rendered do a miracle, is in the Greek poiesei 
dimamin, which simply means to do or exert power or force, 



184 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

and hence the word miracle is a forced translation, and is alto- 
gether unwarrantable. 

In the Gospel of John the word miracle occurs eleven times, 
and in each case is a forced translation of the Greek noun 
semeion, as it is in the twenty-third chapter and eighth verse of 
Luke, likewise. This word semeion, as 1 have said, means 
simply and precisely a sign. It occurs very frequently in all 
the Gospels in the Greek version, but, with the exceptions I 
have named, is always translated sign. In all these cases, then, 
I repeat, the Greek word translated sign is the same word 
which is translated miracle eleven times in John and once in 
Luke. The word sign is no doubt the correct translation, as I 
think all unprejudiced linguists will agree, and the word miracle 
a forced translation, adopted it would really seem to meet the 
preconceived views of the translators, or perhaps of the super- 
stitious King James himself, who authorized the translation. 

The difference between wonderfulness and signification, in 
their bearing upon the human mind, is greater in this connec- 
tion than may be at first supposed. A little reflection, however, 
will at once illustrate the utter uselessness of the one term and 
the entire approjDriateness of the other. Before an array of 
facts or a logical proposition can be useful, or at all beneficial, 
the mind to whom the same is presented must pass beyond the 
mere condition of wonder, and must hold whatever is before 
it for consideration as significant, — significant for or against 
some proposition sought to be enforced. 

And this is the light in which the phenomena recorded in the 
Bible, and the spiritual phenomena of the present day should 
be regarded. They were and are not occurrences outside of the 
course of nature, designed to excite the wonder of humanity, 
but events beautifully in harmony with the laws of the uni- 
verse, and are significant of the grandest truth of all the ages. 
Significant of the immortality of the race ; significant of the 
perpetuity of individual consciousness beyond the grave ; signifi- 
cant of the fact that earth's kindred ties of fond affection are 



THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE APOSTLES. 185 

not severed by the visitation of God's pale angel called deaths 
but that our beloved and departed are still bound to us by 
golden cords of undying sympathy, seeking to cheer our hearts 
and brighten our hopes continually through the inculcation of 
loftier and truer conceptions as to the unsolved enigma of time, 
and the glorious possibilities of the eternity that awaits us all. 

A proper translation of the Greek word semeion renders 
the phenomena which were presented at the dawning of the 
Christian era and those of the present spiritual epoch strikingly 
analogous, the more especially when due attention is given to 
the actual and evident purpose of each. But the philosophy 
deduced from the phenomena of the present age is far in 
advance of that system of creeds and dogmas which has been 
erroneously promulgated as the outgrowth of the spiritual 
dispensation of the past. The truth was undoubtedly the same 
at both periods, whilst the phenomena were almost identical. 
But the lack of spiritual culture at the early age referred to, 
and the consequent misappreciation on the part of the people in 
whose midst they appeared, rendered the brilliant light of immor- 
tality but as a dim taper, as it were, amid the murky atmosphere 
arising from the arbitrary institutions which so soon followed 
their inception, and which so soon crushed out all practical 
benefit therefrom, by the imprisonment of the soul in an iron 
net-work of dogmatic theology. Under the developing influ- 
ences of the present century, however, the same truth, through 
similar agencies, is already shining above the horizon of the 
mental hemisphere, and if man be true to himself it must inev- 
itably reach the zenith. 

But, again, the matter of the entire universe around us has 
been scientifically assorted into certain elements, or simple sub- 
stances, which are said to constitute the bases of all matters. 
These existed first in the granite incrustations of the globe 
which we inhabit, which incrustation was the legitimate result 
of its rotary motion as a ball of fire-mist for ages. This rocky 
surface through succeeding ages, including the glacier period. 



186 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

produced the soils. From these, through the forces of nature, 
guided by Infinite will, vegetables were first evolved, as individ- 
ualized representatives of the life principle of the universe. 
These vegetables, through the incidental conditions of decom- 
position, decay, and growth, lifted up and advanced a suflicient 
number of the primates so as to constitute in time lower forms 
of animal life. These, again, contributed through the same 
laws in elevating and potentializing the elements composing 
successive animal organisms until finally man's organic structure 
becomes the grand reservoir and epitome of all that has gone 
before him ; so that, in fact, as declared by A. J. Davis, " there 
is nothing in any segment of iron, in any mineral compound, 
in any anatomical structure, in any physiological function, in 
any psychological process, or even in any spiritual sphere of 
being, which may not be found, fundamentally, germinaliy, 
radically, or prophetically in man, either in partial or full 
development." Man's body, therefore, is an ultimate of the 
material universe, comprehending in a refined degree all the 
elements that compose the varied and multiplied structures 
and forms that exist below him in the scale of being. 

Science has likewise demonstrated the existence of a more 
refined substance, — invisible and intangible to the material 
senses, — filling all space, so called, and penetrating all grosser 
matter as a constituent element. And, further, that in the 
vibrations and impulses of this ethereal element is to be found 
the philosophy of light, heat, electricity, and, indeed, all the 
physical energies of nature. In harmony with these scientific 
facts, Spiritualism declares that as, through the functional 
arrangements of existence, the external body is being built up 
and sustained from kindred elements in the material universe to 
those of which it is composed ; so, in like manner, and as natu- 
rally, is the spiritual body being built up from and sustained 
by its kindred elements in the ethereal realm of which I have 
spoken ; whilst the intelligent principle within, the divine spark 
or soul, is continually acting as a magnetic center, and holds 



THE SPIE-ITUALISM OF THE APOSTLES. 187 

this spiritual body to itself as an organized unity in time, and 
as one of its means of personal identity in the worlds that are 
to come. This divine spark in man is the basis of his immor- 
tality. As a conscious, intelligent soul, he is uncompounded 
and indestructible. As a finite creature, and in a finite sense, 
the soul of man is possessed of the attributes of the Infinite 
source from whence it has emanated, whilst in its essence this 
intelligent principle is as incomprehensible as is the Father Soul 
and source of all. The spiritual body, as the dial-plate of eter- 
nity shall indicate revolving ages, will doubtless be subjected to 
changes in some manner corresponding to the death of the phys- 
ical body in time, but that inexplicable combination of princi- 
ples which we term the soul, or the spirit, 'per se, is without be- 
ginning or ending, eternal in the past as an essence, eternal in 
the future as an individualized entity. Neither the cremation 
of its outer encasement, or its burial beneath the surface of the 
earth, or the ocean, nor the devouring of the same by wild beasts 
or cannibals, or even the seeming destruction of the germ in 
the placenta walls of maternity, can ever destroy this immortal 
being, this individualized representative of the living God. For 
man, as the ultimatum of the material universe, is to a greater 
extent the recipient of the divine life than any other individu- 
ality in the realm of the finite, tie is the manifestation in a 
limited sense, and the incarnation, of the Deity. However cov- 
ered up beneath the misdirections of education and association, 
this divine spark is centered in the race, although too often 
unseen, like shining ore beneath a rugged soil. And this 
important fact constitutes the essential and true dignity of 
humanity. This great truth Spiritualism is endeavoring to 
enforce as the basis of a system of moral rectitude in this wise : 
self-respect is certainly one of the surest guaranties for the 
integrity of personal character. If a man can succeed in se- 
curing and preserving his own approbation, he need trouble 
himself but little as to what others may think of him. It is 
most emphatically true that 



188 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

*' One self-approving hour whole years outweigh 
Of stupid starers, and of loud applause " ; 

and, yet, it can but be admitted that too often in the present 
state of society in Christendom reputation is man's idol, whilst 
character is lost sight of. Reputation is secured by what others 
may think of you, character is established by what you know of 
yourself. Thus, from the high and ennobling thoughts of human- 
ity, together with the innate dignity and possibility of the race as 
inculcated by Spiritualism, it is hoped, will be eventually engen- 
dered a paramount desire in every soul to act worthy of its 
divine origin. 

Human life, as we well know, throughout all its varied rami- 
fications, is continually adventurous. Events are perpetually 
occurring, even in the quietude of domestic existence, which 
change, sometimes in an instant, the whole train and tenor of 
thought and feeling, thereby influencing both fortune and char- 
acter. It is strange, and sometimes as profitable as it is singu- 
lar, to recall our state of mind on the eve of some new acquaint- 
ance, which terminates in transfiguring our entire being ; with 
some mind whose philosophy revolutionizes entirely all previous 
convictions ; or with some other personage whose fascinations 
metamorphose our whole physical career. Spiritualism gives 
the key to all such retrospective meditations ; and, when her 
intuitions are heeded, is fruitful of self-knowledge, and of wis- 
dom. That equilibrium of character which is sought to be 
established through the intuitions of the sky will result eventu- 
ally to those who seek to profit thereby in an essentially har- 
monious life, — a life with no fierce alternations of rapture and 
anguish, — no impossible hopes, no mad depressions. It frees 
the mind from those delusions of time which succeed each other 
like scentless roses in the great garden of materialism, and com- 
pensates for the absence of perfume by angel ministrations. It 
saves from that excitement which brings exhaustion, and from 
undue indulgence in passions that procreate remorse. To those 
who earnestly seek and heed angelic association and counsel, it 



THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE APOSTLES. 189 

gives a beautiful and luminous mental condition, in which recog- 
nised and paramount duties dispel the harassing cares of time, 
and sweeten the bitter of human experience. Such, even in 
this life, are the consolations of Spiritualism when its intuitions 
are heeded and its lessons practically appreciated. 

In contradistinction to this elevated conception of man's innate 
qualities, and the glorious possibilities of his future, is arrayed 
the horrible and inconsistent teachings of the pulpit, both Catho- 
lic and Protestant. The low estimate in which theology holds 
the race, indeed, its puerile conception of human intelligence, 
disconnected with what it terms grace, the lamentable views 
entertained with regard to the intent and purposes of human 
affection, together with its terrible inculcations as to the natural 
tendencies and final destiny of the soul, constitute a picture so 
intensely revolting, even to the lowest order of mind, as to force 
the conviction that such a system of thought could only have 
originated in the barbaric imagery of a mental darkness, well 
nigh inconceivable to the cultivated mind of the present age ; 
and such monstrous ideas only find a lodgment in the literature 
of the nineteenth century through the psychological influences of 
sectarian education, and that sacredness of feeling which gener- 
ally clusters around the idea of antiquity, and the supposed path- 
way in which our fathers may have trod. 

At the same time it is doubtless a fact — to my mind, at 
least, it is so — that many of the objectionable features of 
theology are corruptions of earlier truths, which, through the 
misdirection and ignorance of the darker centuries of the past, 
have been perverted from their original meaning. " He would 
be a great man," says an able author, " who should detect and 
eliminate the latent and disfigured truth that lies at the root of 
every falsehood ever yet believed among men." Although there 
are both truths and beauties to be found in certain portions of 
the Bible, and also in some of the ethical theories of ecclesiasti- 
cism, nevertheless, it is evident there are many inconsistencies 
to be found likewise in the former, and many dogmas of the 



190 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

latter that do violence to tlie character of both God and man. 
Many of these defective doctrines, however, it seems to me, may 
be justly considered as imperfect and inaccurate expressions of 
certain mighty and eternal verities that prevailed during the 
early part of the Christian era, which fact further illustrates the 
idea I am attempting to convey, viz., that the spiritual dispen- 
sation at the opening of the Christian era, and that of the pres- 
ent day, are the same in essence and in purpose ; but that, owing 
to the materiality of these early centuries, and the consequent 
speedy establishment of arbitrary organizations, together with the 
incorporation, according to the declaration of Mosheim, of the 
popular pagan customs of the period with Christian rites and 
observances, under the direction of ambitious and self-styled, 
but misnamed, vice-gerents of Heaven, the innate spiritual fac- 
ulties of the race were very soon well nigh covered up beneath 
an incrustation of traditional paganism, ecclesiastical arrogance, 
and popular ignorance, — the effects of which, alas, are too 
apparent in the sectarian teachings of the present day, — in 
many cases diametrically the opposite of each other, yet all 
alike claiming the same personal God, the same personal Saviour, 
and the same infallible book. 

Thus, for instance, as I have partly shown, the actual individ- 
ualized spiritual appearance of Jesus of Nazareth, after he had 
put off the tabernacle of the body, as Peter certainly believed, 
has been perverted by ecclesiasticism into the unphilosophical, 
unspiritual, and sad belief, previously adverted to, of a material 
resurrection ; and this dogma, so contrary to the known laws of 
matter, has been, I doubt not, the legitimate and fruitful source 
from whence has indirectly originated the horrible idea of anni- 
hilation entertained by the atheistical school of thought. For 
many minds, disgusted with so monstrous an absurdity, in the 
supposed absence of evidence, have fallen into the opposite 
extreme of rejecting the idea of immortality altogether. 

Again, the idea of the infallibility of men or books, claiming 
to be divine, in other words, the assumed especial inspiration of 



THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE APOSTLES. 191 

the prophets, seers, and apostles of the Jewish and Christian 
dispensations, together with the added assumption in modern 
times of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost exclusively on the 
part of the so-called watchmen upon the walls of Zion, are 
but arrogant perversions, as I conceive, of the great truth in 
nature, as inculcated by Spiritualism, that inspiration is universal. 
The declaration of Paul in this connection, •' God above all, and 
through all, and in yoa all," conveys the true idea of the spirit- 
ual school, as I understand it ; which idea, however, constitutes 
brother Paul — in common with the Spiritualists of today — 
what is termed a believer in Pantheism, a doctrine which the 
E«v. Mr. Moody has recently denounced as contrary to the 
teachings of the Bible. The entire universe. Spiritualism teaches, 
both animate and inanimate, exists alone through inspiration 
from the Infinite central source of all life, all love, and all wis- 
dom. An unbroken chain of intermediate agencies, and inter- 
dependent mental activities and magnetic influences, exists con- 
tinuously from man, on the one hand, far away down to the in- 
organic elements of uncreated worlds ; and, on the other hand, 
from man up to the highest archangel nature that revels amid 
celestial joys unappreciable by the minds of earth. Each inter- 
mediate individuality is through law an agent for the one above, 
and an almoner to the condition below. Man, in co-operation 
with nature's laws, inspires all below him, either directly or in- 
directly ; the spirits of the departed children of time who have 
ascended to higher conditions, and who have become the recipi- 
ents of grander truths and purer joys, are the legitimate and 
certainly the most natural channels of inspiration to man ; whilst 
these again receive still loftier thoughts and brighter concep- 
tions from conditions still above them, — the connecting links 
extending higher and still higher along the spiral pathway of 
love and wisdom, until to finite comprehension all individual 
sources of thought are lost in the grand ascending scale of 
archangel glory. Thus, then, the great Bible of nature, with 
Spiritualism as its exponent, is teaching that inspiration is uni- 



192 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

versal, and that whenever truth is opened to any mind there 
only is revelation. Individual soul-consciousness is, normally 
and forever, the revelation of God. The inspirational diiffer- 
ences that occur, therefore, are in degree and direction, not in 
nature. The divine influx naturally partakes of the individual 
qualities of the channel through which it comes, and sometimes 
is colored more or less by the inharmonious idiosyncrasies of 
the party to whom it comes, and yet all the while the truth is 
one, as God is one. 

A similar perversion of an original and actual truth exists in 
the orthodox dogma of the eternity of future punishments, which 
is certainly false in its ordinary signification in Christendom. 
And yet there is in this doctrine of the Church — libelous as it 
is upon the true character of the Infinite Father — a glimpse of 
one of the grandest and most indisputable truths of nature, viz., 
the unavoidable operations of the law of cause and effect. 
Learned men* tell us that the pulsations of the air, once set in 
motion by the human voice, cease not to exist with the sounds 
to which they gave rise. Strong and audible as they may be in 
the immediate neighborhood of the speaker, and at the immedi- 
ate moment of utterance, their quickly attenuated force soon 
becomes inaudible to human ears. But the waves of air thus 
raised perambulate the earth's and ocean's surface, and in less 
than twenty hours every atom of its atmosphere takes up the 
altered movement due to that infinitesimal portion of primitive 
motion which has been conveyed to it through countless channels, 
and which must continue to influence its path throughout its 
future existence. Even thus Spiritualism teaches, as to the 
inexorable law in the moral world of cause and effect, that the 
external and ineffaceable consequences of every action must 
succeed the performance of the same ; that every word and 
every deed produces effects which must, in the very nature of 
things, reverberate throughout eternity, so that the whole future 
of the soul would be different had that word never been spoken, 

* W. K. Gregg, " The Great Enigma." 



THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE APOSTLES. 193 

or that deed enacted. And this is the great truth in nature 
which theology has tortured into an arbitrary and cruel decree 
of the Infinite, consigning a portion of humanity to the irre- 
mediable woe of hell-fire eternally, — a conception so horrible 
that the worst mind of the present age can scarcely imagine the 
state of impiousness and ignorance in which it must have been 
born. In connection with this unescapable law of cause and 
effect to which I have referred, however, Spiritualism is teaching 
the glorious truth of universal progress beyond the grave. 
Under this law the human heart can find its consolation and its 
joy. Whilst retribution is inevitable, compensation is equally 
sure. For it is declared by the blessed ones who have gone 
before us to the Summer-Land of the future that " all our suf- 
ferings hereafteiv are to be probationary and purifying, and 
therefore terminable ; whilst our joys will be elevating and 
improving, and therefore forever advancing." 

The orthodox idea of Deity, the especial divinity of Jesus of 
Nazareth, and the conception generally attempted to be enforced 
in Christendom of a personal God, it seems to me, are irrational 
and unwarrantable in the extreme. For it must be apparent 
that Omnipotence itself could not infuse into finite conceptions 
any just estimate of the Infinite, and that no possible change in 
the bounded capacity of the finite mind could enable it to 
receive a full knowledge of Divinity, -per se. On the contrary, 
human intelligence can but be at fault in its attempts to grasp 
the infinite theme ; human language can give no adequate ex- 
pression to an idea so sublime ; human comprehension must ever 
remain shrouded in an obscurity impenetrable, whilst human 
imagination can but be utterly subdued, and human thought 
retreat in conscious imbecility. And, yet, theology assumes to 
dogmatize upon so majestic a theme, and damn every questioning 
soul who fails to receive its puerile limitation of the illimitable, 
wherein it is sought to clothe the inconceivable spirit of the 
universe in the one finite form of the Galilean Teacher; and 
condemns as religious renegades all who, in their sincere en- 



194 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

deavors to solve the enigma of existence, are indulging in more 
refined, elevated, and philosophical speculations as to the rela- 
tions existing between each and every member of the human 
family and the infinite primal source of all being. In thus 
making Jesus God theology destroys him as an example to hu- 
manity. We can dwell no longer upon his beautiful character 
for imitation if this doctrine be true. If he was God, then it is 
the merest irony to speak of him as a type, a model, of human 
excellence, as is often done. But, if he was a man, then is he 
our pattern, and, in the language of Theodore Parker, he was 
" the possibility of the race made real." 

Considering Jesus in this light, we can readily perceive in how 
far the doctrine of his special divinity is but the corruption of a 
grand fundamental truth in nature, which, in addition to what I 
have already said in this connection, may be thus briefly stated : 

Man is divine by nature of his origin. Every human soul is 
an emanation from the great Father Soul of the universe, and 
in his essence, as before remarked, is as inexplicable to the 
human intellect as is the primal source from whence he has 
emanated. Hence, the doctrine of total depravity is a horrible 
remnant from the mental darkness of past ages, and a libelous 
arraignment of that infinite love and wisdom which characterizes 
the economy of the universe. Man, therefore, instead of being 
the miserably, depraved wretch he has been represented, must 
be and is in his essence pure, innately good, instead of innately 
bad. Jesus, in an eminent degree, for the age in which he 
lived, and in comparison with those by whom he was surrounded, 
outworked his divinity into practical life, and such, likewise, 
may be our glorious privilege if we but listen continually to 
the pure and ennobling impulses of our inner and better nature, 
as w^ell as the glorious lessons of love and wisdom which are 
now reaching us from angelic life through the instrumentality 
of the much-despised phenomena of Spiritualism. 

And, further, as Peter evidently believed, and as Spiritualism 
is teaching, the spiritual nature of man is not merely a deport- 



THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE APOSTLES. 195 

ment of character, or a separate faculty of the general mind, 
needing the earthly body hereafter, through which to express 
itself, but it is the sum of the whole man in a more perfect, 
exalted, glorious, and permanent form. It is constituted of the 
physical, moral, emotional, and intellectual, with each respective 
faculty quickened and refined into that spiritual body which is 
the true casket of the soul, or divine spark of intelligence, and 
which united constitute the man in the highest and most abso- 
lute sense. The change effected by what is called death, there- 
fore, is not a change of character, but merely a transference of 
the immortal and constructive elements, assembled under a like 
form, with like features, like sentiments, and like emotions. 
There is a phenomenal change, which chemists affirm to have 
been observed in plants, which will serve in some slight degree 
to illustrate the Spiritualist's idea of death. Take any flowering, 
aromatic herb, or shrub, and place it in a retort ; separate the 
liquid parts from the solid by distillation, or even reduce it to 
ashes, and precipitate the ashes in water. After a while that 
which constituted the sap or spiritual property of the plant may 
be seen through a powerful lens to form itself into a perfect 
picture of the root, stem, leaves, and flowers as they appeared 
in the fiber, the vital principle still manifesting the same attract- 
ive and formative power, and proving that the vegetable still 
lives, though under a more ethereal aspect, being in fact what 
may be called the spiritual plant. 

And thus it is with man. After having undergone seeming 
destruction, through the powerful lens of spiritual truth, he may 
be seen and recognized still as a man, demonstrating the fact 
that physical death is but the divinely-established method of 
the spirit's exodus from the tabernacle of the body, and further 
evincing his capacity, as is now being realized by the Spiritualist 
in common with Peter, to keep his friends, after his decease, 
always in remembrance. 

But I must bring my remarks to a close, though the theme is 
so prolific of thought that I might add much more. 



196 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

The truth is, my friends, the more fondly and fully my mind 
is enabled to grasp the fundamental idea of the spiritual truth 
now dawning above the hill tops of superstition and fanaticism, 
which have so long obstructed human vision and human appre- 
ciation, the more profound becomes the conviction that the phe- 
nomenal facts characteristic of Judean literature in the life-time 
of Jesus and his Apostles are strikingly identical with those of 
the present epoch, however much the peculiar nature of the 
underlying truth of the incidents of that age may have become 
shrouded and perverted through the materiality and ignorance 
of the centuries after Christianity took the place of philosophy, 
and the stake and the sword became the proselyting agents of 
Christianity. Truth is a unit, however diversified or finite may 
be its expression. The great fact of the ministry of angels, the 
actual communion and personal appearance of the spirits of the 
departed, in other words, universal inspiration, with the legiti- 
mate sequences of thought, the immortality and divinity of the 
race, were all true two thousand years ago, however much mis- 
understood and misappreciated ; and, thank God, they are true 
today. 

The diamond-powdered lilies of the field folded their perfumed 
petals under the Syrian dew, wherewith, through law, they were 
baptised, in token of ceaseless guardianship ; and the sinless fowls 
of the air nestled serenely under the shadow of an Almighty 
wing; and shall not God's star-eyed messengers of love, our own. 
beloved and departed, minister to their brethren, the desolate 
and the destitute, wending their weary way amid the uncertain- 
ties of time ? Aye, over the hills of Judea, out of the crumbling 
walls of Jerusalem has floated on the wings of eighteen centu- 
ries, and on the great bosom of nature for untold cycles, the 
message of infinite benevolence, the message of all time, though 
but feebly appreciated in the past, that of universal inspiration^ 
superadded to the great truth of the Immortality and Divinity 
of the entire race. 



LECTURE XI. 

HEAVEN. 
In my Father's house axe many mansions. — John, ch. xiv., v. 2. 

It has been very truthfully said that he who has studied the 
various phenomena of nature, read the history of the past care- 
fully, and thought on both deeply, needs not to be told that 
progressive change is the law of the universe, both animate and 
inanimate. 

In this connection Spiritualism teaches most emphatically (as 
I understand it) that there is no such condition, either in the 
physical or moral departments of nature, as absolute retrogres- 
sion, as is taught in other schools of thought. Philosophic ob- 
servation, however, discloses the fact that in the realm both of 
mind and matter there is a seeming and an actual truth in this 
respect, the former, through theHniteness of human perception, 
too frequently taking the place of the latter. Thus, at times, 
in the broad field of inanimate nature, and in the individual 
man, in the physical and in the mental, retrogression is seem- 
ingly apparent. But such conditions, as I apprehend, are only 
in the seeming, and cannot exist otherwise. The infinite per- 
fections of Deity, in whom all things " live, move, and have their 
being," it appears to me, must certainly forbid any other conclu- 
sion. To the unlettered observer of the sidereal year, as you are 
aware, it is a seeming truth that the natural sun in the heavens 
is revolving around the earth. To the astronomer, nevertheless, 

(197) 



198 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

it is an actual truth that our little globe is revolving with har- 
monious precision around its parent sun. 

So, also, occasionally it is a seeming truth that there is really 
a dark spot on the surface of our natural sun. It is at such 
times an actual truth, however, that one of the members of our 
solar system is passing between the earth and the sun whilst 
pursuing the tireless pathway of its legitimate orbit around the 
parent luminary, simply casting a shadow there for a few hours 
with each recurring century. 

The florist tells us, likewise, that the beauty of the rose tree, 
which has been purposely deprived for a time of light and moist- 
ure, seems faded and gone ; silent and in darkness it stands, 
drojiping one fading leaf after another, and seemingly going 
down patiently to death: But, to the practical horticulturist, 
it is an actual truth that this is a process of improvement and 
growth ; that when the plant stands stripped to the uttermost, 
a new life is even then working in the buds, from which spring 
a richer wealth of foliage, of beauty, and of fragrance. And, 
thus, in the moral garden of God, Spiritualism teaches that all 
the experiences of time, however seemingly dark or sad, if prop- 
erly improved, are actualities for good in the illimitable future of 
the race. 

Great nature, in her mighty and mysterious workings, mani- 
fests at times in the physical universe what is seemingly a 
retrogression. Terrible convulsions have shaken the earth to 
its center, and tremendous tornadoes swept violently over its 
surface, blasting the granite's firmness and the lily's growth. 
And, in the past, theology has stood amazed at these phenomena 
of nature, whilst superstition quailed before the seeming and 
supposed anger of the Deity. But, to the present age, science 
has demonstrated the actual truth that such manifestations are 
but successive steps in the pathway of the grand old earth in 
its progressive march toward the ultimate consummation of its 
planetary development. Richer beauties and increased splendor 
have succeeded each convulsive throe ; old hills and mountains 



HEAVEN. 199 

may have disappeared, but new ones have lifted their emerald 
heads, kissing the sky, whilst atmospheric influences have be- 
come purer and sweeter with each successive storm. 

As time continued his flight along the centuries, ancient cities 
with their once venerated civilizations have perished ; but 
mightier and more beautiful occupy their places. Indeed, 
whole races of men have passed away, but nobler and fairer 
have come upon the stage of action, and higher in the scale of 
moral and intellectual development. In this connection the poet 
beautifully sings : — 

" 'T was but the ruin of the bad, 

The wasting of the wrong and ill; 
All of good the old time had 
Is living still." 

In other words, change, progressive change, has been the order 
of the universe. And yet orthodox theology contends there is 
no progress, especially none in religious ideas. 

True, there may have been but slight changes in church 
creeds ; theological dogmas may still exist as intellectual fossils 
of the past; and yet the philosophic observer of the general 
growth of ideas cannot fail to perceive that the popular mind, 
without the pale of the Church, has undergone very important 
changes as to its items of theoretical faith. Within the borders 
of the Church, it is likewise observable that many, very many, 
minds are far in advance of the creeds and dogmas of other 
days. But, with regard to no one item of the faith of the past, 
perhaps, has the general mind become so divided and subdivided 
in sentiment as upon the subject matter of my present discourse, 
namely, the character and condition of a future world of enjoy- 
ment. Most ideas entertained upon this theme within the 
Orthodox Church are based upon the expressed opinions merely 
of theologians, which opinions are rather the reflex of the my- 
thologies of the past than in accordance with the teachings of 
the record on which they ostensibly rely as infallible. For, it 
cannot be consistently claimed that any distinct or appreciable 



200 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

facts respecting the character of a future world of spiritual 
existence are to be found in the Bible ; no idea, at least, in 
consonance with the character of a loving Father, or in harmony 
with the warrantable hopes of an aspiring soul. The Plebrews, 
as well as other ancient nations, applied the Hebrew term 
shammayin and the Greek term ouranos (meaning heaven, or 
the heavens) to the open space above the earth ; and, limiting 
it to the area above the visible horizon, made that the residence 
of Deity and all other superior beings. For you doubtless re- 
member that when the Old and New Testaments were written, 
and for centuries later, the learned of that period in the history 
of the world had no other idea of the earth than that it was a 
flat plain of unknown extent, around which the sun, moon, and 
stars made their diurnal circuit, and that they were made for 
this purpose only. Heaven, therefore, could not have been 
regarded at that age as greatly exceeding the earth in geo- 
graphical dimensions. So limited a cosmical theory tended very 
naturally to contract their ideas as to the extent of the spiritual 
universe, as well as to the character of the supposed ruler of the 
same. Hence, Bible writers, as you are aware, compare the 
kingdom of Heaven to an earthly kingdom, and distinguish it 
by all the forms of state, the regal display, and glitter of oriental 
despotisms. Little, however, as you doubtless recollect, is said 
in the Old Testament of the condition of departed souls, or of 
the doctrine of a future life ; whilst, as regards the teachings of 
the JNew, in the time of Jesus, but one sect of the Jews (who 
derived it from the Persians during the Babylonish captivity) 
believed in the doctrine of immortality at all ; but during his 
life as a teacher this doctrine was first propounded to the Jews 
as a subject of revelation, and as an article of faith. And thus, 
in reference to the Jews, especially, it was legitimately declared 
that Jesus had " brought life and immortality to light," but in 
no other sense whatever. For, it is a well-known historical 
fact that the doctrine of immortality had been taught by the 



HEAVEN. 201 

advanced minds of other nations a thousand years before Jesus 
was born. 

The ideas as to a future world of happiness, originally deduced 
from the New Testament, and believed in by the primitive 
Church, were similar to those inculcated for some years back by 
the Millerites or Second Adventists, and were briefly as follows : 
The Jewish kingdom of Heaven was especially regarded as the 
kingdom of the Father; whilst another kingdom, which was 
considered as the kingdom of the Son, was to be established for 
the reception and exclusive benefit of Christians. This king- 
dom was to be set up in Palestine, and was earnestly looked for 
even during the life of the Apostles. From what is said in the 
New Testament, as you are aware, the advent of this kingdom 
was to be somewhat in this wise : Upon the fall of Jerusalem, 
Christ was to appear in the clouds, attended by his holy angels, 
who were to summon the nations, by sound of trumpet, to judg- 
ment in the valley of Jehoshaphat, when the dead were all to 
rise. 

It seems to have been believed in the early days of Christian- 
ity, and is believed by some in the present day, that when what 
is called death arrives the soul as well as the body is to be 
placed in the grave, there to await this general judgment. A 
few years since, while engaged in lecturing in Illinois, I had a 
conversation upon the subject of death with a young married 
lady whose husband had just removed from New England to 
one of our prairie towns. In the course of her remarks, she 
said : " I do not so much fear death, come when it may ; but I 
have a most unconquerable horror of being put under the ground, 
and lying so long out there in that cold, lonely prairie, waiting 
for the final resurrection," in which dogma she had been taught 
to believe. In my reply, I, of course, endeavored to satisfy her 
mind as to the teachings of the dear spirits touching the true 
and immediate resurrection of the individual spirit from out the 
body, through the occurrence of the phenomena termed death, 
and assured her that she herself would never be placed under 



202 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

the ground. Since then I am happy to state that this friend, 
having become more familiar with the glorious facts of Spirit- 
ualism, rejoices now in more cheering and satisfactory reflec- 
tions as to the coming hour when the pale angel of organic law 
shall call her hence. 

In confirmation of the existence of a belief in this terrible 
doctrine of a material resurrection at a period in the past, not 
very remote from the present, I visited a graveyard in one of 
our Eastern cities some years since, and among others read 
the poetical epitaph of a departed saint, cut into the solid granite, 
terminating with the following couplet : — 

"The righteous shall in glory rise, 
And loipe the dust from out their eyes." 

At the close of this judgment, it was believed that the appar- 
ent heavens were to melt with fervent heat, and that the earth 
was to be consumed by fire, and pass away like a scroll, together 
with all unbelievers ; whilst the righteous, saved in some myste- 
rious manner from all fear of harm, would await the new heaven 
and the new earth which were immediately to succeed the old. 
Then the New Jerusalem would come down from God, adorned 
like a bride for her husband, to occupy the site of that which 
had fallen. Here Christ would set up the throne of his father, 
David ; and of his kingdom there was to be no end. Palestine, 
re-created, was to be the garden spot of the new earth. Here, 
every ambitious thought of the early disciples, every dream of lux- 
urious delight and voluptuous appetite was to be realized ; tears 
were to be wiped from all faces, and sorrow and sighing were 
to flee away forever. 

Such, as most of you are aware, are the doctrines to be gath- 
ered from the New Testament, and from the traditions of the age 
immediately succeeding the ascension of Jesus ; and these were 
the received opinions of the Church for several hundred years. 
And, indeed, such is the faith of a portion of the membership 
of the Church today. There are others, however, who, though 



HEAVEN. 203 

professedly believing in the infallibility of the Bible, — from the • 
letter of which this faith is derived, — and at the same time 
denying the possibility of the progress of religious ideas, who 
would feel highly indignant if told this doctrine of the early 
Church was the sum of their faith. Such is the incomprehen- 
sible inconsistency of the theological platform. 

Some twenty years since I read the discourse of a Unitarian 
clergymen upon this theme, — whose name I am unable to re- 
call, — which deeply impressed my mind; the more especially 
as the ideas were in harmony with my own researches, and with 
the teachings I have received from angel life. In continuing my 
remarks, I shall necessarily follow the same method of reasoning, 
mingling his ideas, doubtless, with my own unavoidably, as the 
logical deductions sought to be arrived at can be reached by no 
other chain of reasoning so satisfactorily. I mention this fact 
BO as to avoid the charge of adopting, without acknowledgment, 
the ideas of another, even in the slightest degree. 

The history of the Church shows that, from the fourth century 
and onward, through the introduction of a more metaphysical 
and speculative element, much of this materiality of belief to 
which I have referred disappeared ; and, as the expectation of 
the second coming of Jesus was deferred from age to age, this 
doctrine at length gave place to a theology of a more visionary 
and transcendental character. The darkest feature of the early 
Eastern faith — the doctrine of the sinfulness of matter, and of 
the inherent depravity of human nature — was imtroduced into 
Christian theology, the result being that this beautiful green - 
browed earth of ours was put under ban as the possession and 
domain of the devil, where it has remained ever since, if this 
heathenized Christian doctrine be true. The writings of some 
of the early Church Fathers, such as Augustine, Ambrose, 
Athanasius, Chrysostom, Jerome, and others, favored these fear- 
ful ideas borrowed from the murky literature of the early ages 
of culture, and they became at length a part of the creed of the 
Catholic Church. At what is termed the Protestant Reforma- 



204 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

tion, the creed of the mother Church was but partially discarded ; 
for the orthodox Protestant theology of today is characterized 
by the refining away of everything rational, tangible, and emo- 
tional, until the original truths of the system are lost in a lurid 
splendor as uninviting and as cold as the reflected light of the 
sun upon the frozen surface of an inland lake. 

Under the influences of the speculative tendencies to which I 
have referred, as well as of ecclesiastical ambition, — which 
arose early among the Fathers of the Church, and which is still 
in a great measure characteristic of the orthodox clergy as a 
class, — the spiritual facts so numerous and so prominent in the 
early history of Christianity seem to have been entirely lost 
sight of, and their true significance utterly ignored. You will 
hear, well nigh every Sunday, learned speculations and even 
declarations as to heaven and hell being two conditions in the 
spirit world, and the only two, notwithstanding the words of 
my text, taken from the record declared to be infallible. But 
if you will ask one of these watchmen upon the walls of the 
orthodox Zion, what is that spirit world ? he is entirely unpre- 
pared to give an answer at all commensurate with the demands 
of the age, or the hopes of the race. Neither his Bible, as he 
has been taught to interpret it, nor the Church, ancient or 
modern, can furnish him with a reply at all adapted to the 
needs of the philosophic mind, or in unison with the character 
of a beneficent God. The cause of this uncertainty is to be 
found in the fact that the Church of today has never logically 
determined or ascertained the spiritual foundation on which her 
system rests. While humanity has been advancing in every 
department of thought outside of her borders, the Church, as a 
system, has been standing still, looking backward for her rule 
of life rather than forward. Her theories, althous^h so doormat- 
ically heralded to the world, are not the result of any legitimate 
method of reasoning. Neither her conclusions or her creeds 
are warrantable sequences, logically drawn from fundamental 
truths or first principles, but are merely arbitrary decrees of 



HEAVEK. 205 

the past, attempted to be rendered obligatory upon the blind 
faith of the present. To a very great extent, indeed, reason is 
practically interdicted to her members. Consequently, her les- 
sons, based upon the traditions and doctrines of a period of 
ignorance and superstition, are but ill adapted to the necessities 
of the advancing mind of the age. 

In contradistinction to the intellectual apathy of the Church, 
to which I have referred, and in addition to the multiplied facts 
demonstrative of her theories touching the conditions of a future 
state, Spiritualism enjoins further, especially for the satisfaction of 
the merely external reasoner, who has not yet reached phenome- 
nal demonstration, the exercise of that correct method of reason- 
ing upon these questions that has led to almost every discovery 
of modern science that now blesses the race, — I mean the Baco- 
nian, or inductive, method. And it will be found that the legiti- 
mate deductions arrived at by this method of reasoning are in 
accord with the lessons received by the spiritual school through 
the theologically contemned channel of spirit communion. 

In connection with the introduction of this method of reason- 
ing, permit me to remark that the middle or dark ages of our 
world's history have been described as comprehending the thou- 
sand years from the taking of Rome by the Goths, in the middle 
of the fifth century, to the taking of Constantinople by the 
Turks, in the middle of the fifteenth century. The revival of 
letters in the West succeeded this invasion of the Turks, having 
been brought about mainly by the learned exiles whom the 
destruction of the Grecian Empire forced to take refuge in Italy ; 
and the human mind thenceforward manifested a disposition in 
well nigh every department of thought — more especially in 
regard to the material sciences — to throw off the trammels of 
prejudice and authority to which the race had been so long sub- 
jected. Bold and original thinkers arose, determined to see and 
know for themselves as far as possible touching the realities of 
nature and the revealments of thouf^ht. But the war aojainst 
the old despotic formalities of the schools (says a recent writer) 



206 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

was not commenced on anything like a grand scale, or carried 
on with adequate vigor and system, until the gigantic intellect of 
Bacon entered the field of experimental investigation. The 
method taught by him, as you are doubtless aware, was that of 
experiment and - induction, — that system of philosophy, for in- 
stance, by which we determine the qualities and characteristics 
of an entire class from what we may have learned of a single 
member of that class ; that mode of reasoning which enabled a 
Buckland and a Sedgwick, from the teeth and bones of long- 
extinct animals, and from the leaves or trees that have decayed 
for thousands of years, to raise up from the waves of time an 
image of a by-gone world, and people it with monstrous things, 
such as the eye of man probably never beheld in actual exist- 
ence ; that method, likewise, which enabled Cuvier to judge from 
the fragment of a bone, and Agassiz from a scale, the form and 
character of the creature to which each belonged. Prior to this, we 
are told, the earlier philosophers may have been accurate observ- 
ers, but they were not real experimenters. They heard and re- 
corded what nature stated of her own accord, but they asked her 
no questions. The experiments made in the dark ages, prior to 
the revival of letters, were made simply for the purpose of obtain- 
ing some material result, never with the object of detecting or test- 
ing a principle, — somewhat in the way certain minds professedly 
investigate the spiritual phenomena of today ; one class simply 
as an alleged fact in nature, and the other merely for the grati- 
fication of their own private feelings ; both utterly regardless 
of any ethical or philosophical bearing these phenomena may 
have touching the temporal or immortal destinies of the race. 
Bacon, on the other hand, " taught the bringing in or collecting 
of facts, and assorting of them according to their bearings, for 
the purpose of thence deducing those inferences which properly 
constitute philosophy." Reasoning by this inductive method in 
regard to man's future condition in the spirit world, we shall 
not only reason from correct premises, but be enabled, I appre- 
heud, to reduce to a demonstration what the Orthodox Church 



HEAVEN. 207 

practically declares lies beyond the recognition of tlie human 
faculties. Let us see. As I have previously said, no appreci- 
able idea as to what the spirit world may be is obtainable from 
the Bible. Deductions drawn from thence have been simply 
conjectural, whilst speculations are as numerous as are the 
dreams of sectarianism, — none of which, however, have proven 
satisfactory to the aspiring minds of the age. But let us now 
apply the method of reasoning to which I have referred to this 
question : What is the spirit world ? The answer at once pre- 
sents itself to a mind confident of infinite beneficence, legitimate 
and consolatory, viz.: The spirit world is a world suited to he the 
residence of human beings horn into this world to the end that they 
may ascend, to that. 

This answer you at once perceive is the necessary product 
of the question ; and is naturally followed by a second enquiry, 
viz.: In what does this suitableness consist? The answer to this 
instinctively forces itself on the mind thus : This suitableness 
consists in such things as will meet the demands and gratify the 
desires of human beings. 

And, in order that we may ascertain what these things in the 
spirit world are, we must necessarily reason from what we know 
of the habits, desires, capabilities, and future possibilities of man, 
— the being who is to be elevated to that world, and to whose 
demands and desires they are to be adapted. For, in order to 
ascertain the truth of any proposition touching the destiny of 
man, you need only to reason from what is known of the higher 
qualities of his nature from those qualities which have found 
but little or no expression or gratification in this lower world ; 
since every reflective mind can but feel that in the operations 
of the divine economy the best means are invariably adapted to 
the best ends ; that co-existent with the Infinite Author of man's 
existence are such unvarying laws that all proper desires are 
but the prophecies of legitimate gratification, and that every 
faculty or sense must have its appropriate object, either here or 
hereafter. This must be so, or that man exists at all would be 



208 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

most fearful irony on the part of the Source from whence he 
has emanated. 

And, now, to reach the appropriate solution of the original 
question : What is the spiritual world ? In order to do this, — 
adhering to the inductive method of reasoning recommended, — 
it is, of course, only necessary that we should determine as to 
the enquiry : " What is man ? " 

In answer to this important interrogatory, a certain Greek 
philosopher has said that "man is a two-legged animal with- 
out feathers." An English chemist has defined man to be " a 
little less than fifty pounds of carbon and nitrogen diffused 
through six pailfuls of water." Orthodox theology declares 
" man to be a worm,- religiously fit for nothing ; and the natural 
man fit only to be damned." Spiritualism declares man- to be 
a physical, an intellectual, and a spiritual being ; and, as such, 
innately divine, and destined to live forever amid substantial 
and immortal realites in another and a better world. That we 
may form an approximate conception, through inductive reason- 
ing, of what man's future home necessarily must be, let us con- 
sider him for a moment or two as Spiritualism defines him 
generically. 

First. Man is a physical being, that is, he has an external 
form that has been outwrought from inner potencies for the uses 
and purposes of time. Everything in the universe is made to 
contribute to the subsistence, growth, and well-being of this 
material form, which is the outward personal expression of some 
inner and intelligent personality ; and in which all the elements 
of the material universe ultimate and fulfill their destiny. 

Second. Man is a moral and an intellectual being, and in this 
respect is pre-eminently distinguished froni all other animal 
existences. Through this external mind or intellectual faculty 
may be developed into exercise a moral judgment or rule 
designed to regulate and define the character of his sentiments 
and actions ; and, proportioned to the continuous development 
of which it is capable, this department of the being becomes 



HEAVEN. 209 

the harmonious or discordant exponent of the divine principle 
within. 

Third. Man is an emotional or spiritual being. The spiritual 
nature of man, however, is not merely a department of character, 
or a separate faculty of the creature ; but, as the facts of Spirit- 
ualism demonstrate, it is the sum of the whole man in a more 
perfect, exalted, glorious, and permanent form. This interior man 
is constituted of the physical, moral, emotional, and intellectual 
properties, quickened and refined into that spiritual body of 
which St. Paul spoke in his Epistle to the Corinthians, which 
is the true casket of the intelligent principle or soul, and which, 
united with the soul, constitute the man in the highest and most 
exalted sense. The change, therefore, of which Job speaks, 
now called death, is not a change of character, but of conditions 
merely, — a transference of the constructive elements of the spirit- 
ual body to be re-assembled under a like form, with like features, 
like sentiments, and like emotions, upon a more congenial and 
appropriate plane, upon another and broader field of activities. 

Thus, then, if I have made myself intelligible, it will be per- 
ceived that, through a legitimate and warrantable process of 
reasoning, we arrive at the unavoidable conclusion that the 
future home of the race is a purely natural one, in the sense of 
its adaptation to the immediate and highest demands of the indi- 
vidual soul. In other words, upon leaving the old worn-out 
tenement of clay, through the natural processes of the phe- 
nomenon termed death, the individual soul or spirit, under the 
operations of the divine law of cause and effect, harmoniously 
gravitates to such conditions as he has prepared himself or her- 
self for, and which are naturally demanded through the culture 
of the moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities with which 
each has been possessed in this world, entering immediately 
upon such heaven or happiness, and upon such alone, as each is 
capacitated to enjoy, — thus constituting heaven a condition 
and not a place, in accordance with the teachings of the Naza- 
rene ; and rendering the inner or spiritual world the common 



210 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

home of humanity, the house of the Universal Father, truly, as 
asserted in my text, and necessarily a place of '' many mansions." 

Again, on the other hand, those who have been derelict to 
duty in the earth life ; those who have failed in their duty to 
themselves and their fellow-men ; those who have oppressed 
the poor and the needy ; those who have been consciously false 
to principle, and have done violence to their own highest con- 
victions of right, either in acts of omission or commission, will 
find themselves amenable to the operations of the same law of 
cause and effect as are those who have done well, and will feel 
themselves likewise gravitating to such conditions and associa- 
tions as they have fitted themselves for, consequently realizing 
that the kingdom of darkness is within them ; and they must so 
continue until, through aspiration and effort, they shall rise to 
higher and better conditions through the operations of the law 
of generic progress, which, according to the teachings of the 
spiritual gospel beneficently prevails throughout every depart- 
ment of God's majestic universe. But, it is not of this latter 
class I am to speak, especially upon the present occasion. It 
is not of retribution, but of compensation ; it is not suffering, 
but happiness, or heaven, which constitutes the theme of my 
discourse. And this heavenly condition in the spirit world, 
together with the means of its attainment, is surely worthy, 
eminently worthy, the earnest attention of every aspiring soul. 

It is alleged by the opponents of Spiritualism that its teach- 
ings are demoralizing, and calculated to produce a disrupture of 
the best conditions of society. Such allegations, however, can 
originate alone in unwarrantable prejudice, or in a degree of 
ignorance wholly unjustifiable in the present age of enlighten- 
ment, and amid the innumerable facilities for investigation 
continuously proffered by the representative minds of the cause. 
True, inharmony, misdirection, and folly may at times have 
been observable among some calling themselves Spiritualists, 
but such unhappy individual manifestations and conditions are 
not necessarily attributable to the system itself, although the 



HEAVEN. 211 

enemies of the cause so declare. No one should think less of 
the spiritual conceptions of John, the practical ideas of James, 
the philosophical tenets of Paul, or of the general system of 
ethics advocated by them because Thomas doubted the good 
medium of Nazareth, because Peter in the most cowardly man- 
ner denied him, or because Judas treacherously betrayed him. 
To the reflective mind it must be apparent that the inharmonies 
and delinquencies adverted to in connection with our cause are 
due to misconception and to the idiosyncrasies of individual 
character rather than to any defect in the fundamental precepts 
of this glorious gospel of the skies, which is being so benefi- 
cently transmitted to us through angel ministration. For good 
angels invariably tell us that happiness is the normal condition 
of a race legitimately claiming divine origin ; that happiness 
either here or hereafter can only be attained by being and doing 
good, and that the condition of unalloyed happiness is heaven. 
For the attainment of such a condition in time, and for its 
immediate possession when time for us shall have ended, let us 
continually strive for higher and nobler attainments ; let us 
learn to know more and more of ourselves and of our diviner 
possibilities through our own creations in all the departments of 
thought and feeling ; let us cultivate that beautiful and exalted 
aspiration of the soul that unceasingly reaches out after brighter 
thoughts and holier feelings from a recognition of their affinity 
to the divinity within ; let us discard, as far as possible, all the 
deleterious influences of those darker channels through which 
thought wrought its way when mind was a suckling, lifting the 
standard of perfection, to which we would aspire, higher and 
still higher ; and, as it recedes, beautiful and still more beautiful, 
rest assured, will be the invitation onward, " like unto the gor- 
geous belt. of the rainbow, receding from him who seeks to find 
the spot where its mellow foot is planted as it springs its angel- 
trod arch over the waves of the retiring storm. Oh, despite the 
animadversions and ostracisms of the age in which we live, as 
the dear spirits enjoin, let us continually aim for the elevation 



212 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

and advancement of the race, ever cultivating bright thoughts, 
beautiful thoughts, of all things, of all that is above, beneath, and 
around us ; pure thoughts, kind thoughts, of each other ; and 
be sure that there is not an angel bending from the snowy clouds 
that roll as an ocean of drapery over the blue depths of the sky 
but will smile with exceeding beauty upon all such efforts," 
whilst they continue to assure us of the undimmed joys of the 
beautiful Summer-Land, the home of the aspiring soul. Let us 
ever remember that the surest guarantee of a heaven in the fut- 
ure is the study and the practice of the good, the true, and the 
beautiful in the present, whilst we confidently rely upon the 
guidance and protection of our dear departed, — the white-winged 
messengers of the Living God. 



LECTURE Xn. 



HELL. 



The wicked shall be turned into hell, with all the nations that forget God.— 
Psalm ix., v. 17. 

" When will the world understand that theology is not relig- 
ion ?" inquires an able writer of the present day. In other 
words, when will the human mind be able to comprehend that 
nothing is truer than truth, emanate whence it may, and that 
truth is no more sacred when it comes to us through supposed 
revelation than when established upon unimpeachable human 
evidence ? Orthodox theologians have fought against this idea, 
but have been invariably driven to the wall. Truth, wherever 
found, by whomsoever uttered, or in what manner presented, is 
sacred because it is truth, and has its birth in the Infinite. "We 
know of no reason, therefore, why a theological dogma should 
be esteemed, necessarily, more sacred than a political dogma. 
Nor can we understand why, in the interest of true religion, a 
theological dogma, if deemed erroneous, may not be as freely 
discussed as a dogma in political economy. At any rate, the 
spiritual school of thought which I have the honor to represent 
proposes to do this upon all proper occasions, not in a spirit of 
iconoclasticism merely, but with a view to the promulgation of 
what is believed to be established truth. 

Hence, I have no hesitation this morning in presenting my 
views against the truth of the dogma of an eternal hell of tor- 
ture, founded upon this and other texts of the Bible, and incul- 
cated by the orthodox theologians of the day, believing as I do 

(213) 



214 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

that it is wholly at variance with truth, antagonistic to all known 
laws of the universe, and utterly at war with all the divine attri- 
butes of a God worthy to be reverenced and adored. 

Nor am I alone in this opinion, or in my feelings of horror 
in regard to orthodox dogmas, since, as doubtless some of you 
have seen in one of the ablest and most independent secular 
journals of the day,* after adverting to the apathy and dead- 
ness of faith, together with the prevalence of rationalism, in the 
churches, the brave and thoughtful editor suggests that it is ad- 
visable for Protestants of all sorts to consider the rapid changes 
that are taking place in popular belief, that they may not imperil 
the whole of their system by attempting to save dead dogmas 
that the whole soul revolts at. 

An increasing skepticism admittedly exists throughout Chris- 
tendom with regard to certain ecclesiastical dogmas that have 
been transmitted to us from the darker ages of the past touching 
the human soul and its destiny. So wide-spread, indeed, is this 
skepticism throughout the general mind that there may be said 
to be well nigh an eclipse of faith in some directions. And yet, 
through the force of sectarian education, dogmatic theology still 
exerts an immense influence with regard to eschatological 
conceptions, and still arrogantly disposes of the trusting souls 
of humanity with an unsparing and a cruel hand. The dog- 
mas of "total depravity," an "angry God," a "vicarious atone- 
ment," an " eternal hell," and a " voracious devil," still darken 
the religious literature of the nineteenth century, claiming 
authority for existence in the idea of " infallibility," claiming 
authority for existence in the alleged infallible teachings which 
have come down to us from the earlier ages of the Church, 
when that portion of the race from which we gather our relig- 
ious records may be said to have been in its childhood, circum- 
scribed in thought, and fast tied to the apron strings of old time. 
This doctrine of infallibility, in relation to finite productions. 
Spiritualism declares has undoubtedly been a stumbling-block 
* Baltimore American. 



HELL. 215 

in tbe pathway of human progress, and exceedingly detrimental 
to the best interests of the soul in every department of spiritual 
thought. The Catholic Ecumenical Council, which assembled 
in Rome in 1870, proclaimed the Pope to be infallible, which 
proclamation all orthodox Catholics accept. The Catholic 
Ecumenical Council, which assembled at Carthage in A. D. 397, 
declared the infallibilty of the authors of the books at that 
period included in the Bible, and Pope Innocent I. confirmed this 
decision, which decision all orthodox Protestants accept, with 
the proviso, however, that this important virtue applies to such 
books only as have been retained since the dawning of the 
Protestant Reformation, as it is termed, or to such books as are 
to be found in the authorized version, or King James Bible, 
now in use in England and the United States. This version, 
as you doubtless are aware, was translated by forty -seven bish- 
ops of the Church of England, in accordance with the command 
and under the supervision of King James L, who sent to each 
translator before they assembled fifteen items of instruction, 
including the absurd and bigoted command that " all the old 
ecclesiastical words should be kept." Hence, doubtless, the 
existence of many words in this volume that offend the classical 
scholarship of the present age, and are likewise at variance with 
any true conception of a God worthy to be reverenced and 
loved by a sympathetic and intelligent mind. No claim is made 
for the infallibility of King James, or for his translators, yet, 
strangely enough, the work of their minds is proclaimed by all 
evangelical theologians to be the infallible word of God, for the 
ignoring of which claim you and I are ostracized in this world, 
and eternally damned, we are told, in the next. The fact is 
that King James, instead of approximating infallibility in his 
character, was really one of the most superstitious and wicked 
monarchs that ever sat upon the English throne. A reliable 
English author says of him : " Though learned and witty, he 
presented to his people the pattern of all that is despicable, 
low, and vicious in a man ; all that is hateful and contemptible 



216 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

in a monarch ; a tyrant, without energy or courage ; a tricky 
politician, without perspicuity or judgment ; vain of his religion, 
yet wavering in his doctrines ; irreligious in his conduct, and 
blasphemous in his discourse ; proud of his cunning, yet always 
deceived and frustrated ; assuming the tone of command, yet led 
like an infant or a fool ; governed by others, though a despot him- 
self ; and only perfect in grossness, selfishness, and treachery." 

And yet this is the individual mind to whose royal instruc- 
tions we are more or less indebted for the painful and irrational 
dogmas of ecclesiasticism, perpetuated through numerous mis- 
translations admittedly existing in the version of the Bible of 
which I am speaking. This fact, in addition to angelic incul- 
cation, together with many other facts in connection with the 
external history of the Bible now in use, warrant us in denying 
its infallibility, its plenary inspiration ; and the entire history 
of Christendom for the last three hundred years may be said to 
be in harmony with this denial, indirectly so, at least ; else, 
why such unmistakable unrest throughout her borders ? Why 
such wonderful changes of sentiment, resulting in the formation 
of so many sects of Christians ? It can but be from the insatia- 
ble longing of humanity after immortality, and an abiding dis- 
trust and horror of the terribly unsatisfactory future, inseparable 
from a literal interpretation of the King James Bible, so often 
and so mistakenly pronounced infallible. In confirmation of 
the existence of the unrest to which I have referred, even in the 
highest ecclesiastical quarters, I may state that I stood only 
two years since in the far-famed Jerusalem chamber, an apart- 
ment in the venerable Abbey of Westminster, in London. In 
this chamber ecclesiastical gatherings have been held and eccle- 
siastical decrees been prepared for nearly a thousand years, 
more especially within the last three hundred and fifty years 
since Protestantism took possession by force of all the ecclesi- 
astical houses of the mother Church in Great Britain, and in lieu 
of St. Peter assumed the control of the souls of the English- 
speaking races. In this chamber a commission composed of 



HELL. 217 

high officials of the Church were then in session, engaged in the 
revision of the identical King James Bible of which I am speak- 
ing. Since that time they have completed their labor, and have 
given the new version to the world, shorn of a few of the errors 
that have existed for centuries, resulting in leaving the others 
all the more glaring. While standing in this ancient chamber, 
the question suggested itself, and still recurs to my mind, why 
this revision at all if the King James Bible now in use be infal- 
lible, as declared by evangelical divines for nearly three hundred 
years past both in Europe and America ? 

On another occasion I sat in the Abbey church itself, and 
listened to the clarion tones of the learned Canon Farrar, of the 
Church of England, as he announced his conviction that the 
present version of the Bible is emphatically erroneous, together 
with the earnest hope that the commission then sitting in Jeru- 
salem chamber would at the conclusion of their labors present 
to the world a copy of the Bible divested of existing errors, and 
especially of those errors having reference to the nature and 
duration of punishment in the future world ; and Canon Farrar 
is admittedly one of the most learned Protestant divines of the 
present century. 

In further testimony to the unrest and unsettled condition of 
the prominent minds of Christendom in regard to the general 
idea of infallibility, I may mention, in addition, that in 1847 
the American Bible Society appointed a committee of its mem- 
bers to prepare a standard edition of the King James version of 
the Bible " free from errors." This committee prepared such an 
edition to the best of their ability, correcting, as they stated, 
twenty-four thousand errors.^ The Bible Society approved what 
their committee had so industriously effected, adopting all the 
changes, and cast new plates for their issues. They put forth 
a splendid volume from their fresh stereotypes. This they kept 
in circulation unquestioned for several years. In December, 
1856, they openly sent a copy of this corrected edition to several 

Scribner^s MontJily, Jan., 1881. 



218 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

statesmen of our own country as a complimentary gift, and a 
copy also to Queen Victoria, accompanied by a letter, in which 
they told her Majesty that " they believed it to be an unusually 
correct edition." And a recent able writer declared this cor- 
rected edition to be " a witness to the fidelity, the learning, and 
the patient laboriousness of the committee on versions, — the 
most fair and beautiful thing the American Bible Society ever 
gave to the world." But, alas, when these presentations became 
known, there commenced among the clergymen themselves a 
war of opposition against the new version. Almost before Queen 
Victoria could have received her copy, in January, 1857, the 
E.ev. A. C. Coxe, then rector of a parish in Baltimore, after- 
wards one of the Bishops of the Episcopal Church, published a 
pamphlet, in which he charged that " Christian men had sur- 
reptitiously gone into the circulation of a cold, modernized, vul- 
garized work "; and violently arraigned the Bible Society for 
seeking, as he said, to " supercede the time-honored version in 
its integrity." The war was continued in a most violeut and 
abusive manner until, finally, bigotry and superstition triumphed 
over this embryonic attempt at the correction of the glaring 
errors of the King James version of the Bible ; and during the 
following winter the Bible Society actually suppressed its cor- 
rected edition, and went back to the publication of the former 
version with its twenty-four thousand discrepancies. And this 
is the Bible now in use in America, for denying the infallibility 
of which Spiritualists are arraigned before the bar of public 
opinion today as infidels, and for which, likewise, they are to be 
eventually turned into an orthodox hell. 

Whatever may be the views entertained by the clergy regarding 
the corrected version of the Bible supplied by the committee of 
revision in England, or of any other that may hereafter appear, 
the spiritual school in regard to the general idea of communica- 
tion from the higher life can but retain its present convictions ; 
and one of those convictions most assuredly is the fact that the 
need of the hour in Christendom is a more general and legiti- 



HELL. 219 

mate conception of what the terms inspiration and revelation truly 
mean, which a more rational appreciation of the laws of spirit 
communion and of spiritual manifestations will most certainly 
supply. Spiritualism inculcates the existence of universal inspi- 
ration, but not plenary inspiration. It teaches the existence of 
revelation, — but not infallible revelation. Both inspiration and 
revelation occur through natural laws ; the one graduated by 
the channel through which it reaches us, the other modified by 
the conditions of the recipient party. In other words, inspira- 
tion may reach us through innumerable channels, both animate 
and inanimate ; but this inspiration becomes revelation only in 
the ratio of our interior appreciation, for soul-consciousness 
alone is the deathless revelator of God's will to man. 

As another instance of existing unrest among the orthodox 
clergy of the present day and generation, I may state (as per- 
haps you are aware) that the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher rejects 
the dogma of the existence of hell as inconsistent with the idea 
of Divine Fatherhood ; that he rejects the doctrine of the fall 
of man, together with the idea of atonement through the sacri- 
fice of innocent blood ; that he claims that miracles are as pos- 
sible now as ever they were ; and likewise rejects the inspira- 
tion of the Bible, except in the broad sense that Shakespeare 
may have been inspired. 

And what is still more significant is the fact that the Congre- 
gational Association of New York and Brooklyn have expressed 
" concurrence in his beliefs." Yerily, are the successors of Cal- 
vin departing from the faith which he taught was once delivered 
to the saints ? 

But let us approach more directly the consideration of my 
text : " The wicked shall be turned into hell." The doctrine of 
"endless punishment" has been perpetuated through the ortho- 
dox, interpretations of this word hell, together with other words 
occurring in the King James Bible now in use amongst us, and 
declared to be infallible, as I have stated. This doctrine of the 
theological school, however, it seems to me, is so intensely hor- 



220 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

rible that all good men and women, instead of seeking to per- 
petuate it, should continually pray for its utter and entire abne- 
gation, — a doctrine " that darkens this otherwise beautiful uni- 
verse by obscuring the perfections and purposes of its God ; a 
faith that can but lead to thoughts dark, cheerless, and desolat- 
ing ; dark as midnight without a star of hope ; horrible as the hiss 
and roar of hideous monsters ; hot as Arabian simoon, wither- 
ing every flower of natural affection ; desolating as the lava of 
a burning mountain, covering field and home with its consuming 
flood ; a faith which is the foulest aspersion of God and man 
possible to the perversion of the human mind ; for it makes of 
one a fiend and of the other a devil, and the end of creation a 
hopeless failure and a blasphemy." A creed that should be 
blotted from the assumed statute book of Heaven, and the entire 
literature of earth. For humanity, with an innate longing to 
reverence and adore the Infinite Father, starts back appalled at 
the character His professedly evangelical children give Him, 
and can but instinctively exclaim : — 

" Hath nature's soul, 
That formed this world so beautiful ; that spreads 
Earth's lap with plenty, and life's smallest chord 
Strung to unchanging harmony ; that gave 
The happy birds their dwelling in the grove ; 
That yielded to the wanderers of the deep 
The lovely silence of the unfathomed main ; 
And filled the meanest worm that crawls in dust 
With spirit, thought, and love ; on man alone., 
Partial in ceaseless malice, wantonly 
Heaped ruin, vice, and slavery ; placed afar 
The meteor happiness that shuns his grasp ; 
But, serving on the frightful gulf to glare, 
Rent wide beneath his footsteps? " 

And when these scenes shall end, has man but a baseless 
hope of joy, and doth hell await him, alone, of all the creatures 
God has made ? 

Such, indeed, may be the startled exclamation of human souls, 



HELL. 221 

deceived as they have been, and are, through the instrumentality 
of creeds and dogmas, — originating amid the Gothic darkness 
of the past, and but ill adapted to the dawning truths and aspiring 
hopes of the present. 

The word hell, in my text, among others, as I have stated, 
has contributed to the perpetuation of the terrible doctrine to 
which I have adverted. If a stranger to our language should 
hear the word hell for the first time, and should naturally turn 
to Webster's dictionary to ascertain its meaning, he would find it 
thus defined : "'T^e place or state of punishment for the wicked 
after death" And the orthodox theologian would tell him that 
his case was fully made out. Such is the common mode of 
proving the doctrine of endless punishment. But, at the risk of 
being deemed presumptuous by a certain class of minds, I must 
be allowed to assert that such a mode of proof is exceedingly 
superficial ; the premises are incorrect and the conclusion alto- 
gether erroneous. Let us, then, look elsewhere than in Web- 
ster's unabridged for a correct definition of this word. And, 
first, we are told by those who have thoroughly investigated this 
matter that this English word heU is derived from the Saxon 
word helle, a term used to express the thatching or covering of 
a house, — meaning originally to place under cover. The Eng- 
lish word heal has the same derivation, and is understood to 
mean the covering up of a wound. So, that, as far as the deri- 
vation of the word is concerned, there is no idea whatever of 
endless punishment conveyed. Again, based upon the deriva- 
tion referred to, printers have in their offices what they terra a 
hell, a place of deposit for refuse type which they wish to place 
out of sight. No idea in connection with eternal punishment 
can be intended by the printer's " hell," since it is a fact that, 
when the refuse type have sufficiently accumulated, they are 
sent to the foundry to be re-cast, or exchanged for new. 

But let us examine the word hell as it occurs in the Old Tes- 
tament, from whence my text is taken. In the Old Testament 
of the King James Bible there are thirty-nine different books. 



222 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

which contain nine hundred and twenty-nine chapters, and 
twenty-three thousand two hundred and fourteen verses. In all 
these books, chapters, and verses the word hell occurs thirty-two 
times. In the same books the word Jehovah, one of the names 
of the God of the Jews, occurs seven thousand times ; the word 
heaven about five hundred times ; and, yet, if you listen to the 
orthodox ministers, especially during what are termed revivals, 
you will hear the word hell uttered much oftener than the other 
two ; since it is unfortunately too true that the sensation oifear 
seems to be the necessary concomitant, or rather precursor, of 
such seasons of religious excitement. I may remark, too, — but 
with no expectation of determining the question by majorities 
merely, — that it is a little singular that the words Jehovah and 
heaven should be numbered by hundreds and thousands, whilst 
the word hell occurs but a little over a score and a half of times ; 
more especially as the latter is deemed so important and all- 
powerful a factor in the orthodox theologies of the day. 

Further, in the . Old Testament, the original Hebrew word 
translated hell is, as many of you know, sheol. The Greek 
of the same word is hades. This original word occurs in the 
Old Testament sixty-four times. As already stated, in thirty- 
two passages, it is translated hell, and in the remaining thirty- 
two it is rendered twenty -nine times grave, and three times pit. 
Now, the question naturally arises, why this difference in the 
translation of the same word ? If the Hebrew word sheol was 
really understood to mean a place of eternal torment, and the 
English word hell was understood to convey the same idea, why 
not so translate it whenever it occurs ? From this translation of 
the word sheol, sometimes hell, and at other times grave and pit, 
it is certainly evident, as declared by the closest searchers after 
truth in this direction, that the translators of the King James 
Bible did not regard the word hell as a place of punishment, but 
that they used this word in the sense properly attached to it 
from its derivation, viz., a place under cover, hidden from view, 
— literally, the mysterious region of the so-called dead^ which 



HELL. 223 

the Jews, from their limited knowledge of a future state, natu- 
rally supposed to be a place in darkness ; really, however, in 
modern language, the spirit world. 

But, if the word hell is the correct translation of the Hebrew 
word sheol, and hell is a place of endless torment, as orthodox 
theologians teach, then any other translation of the original 
word, with a view of obtaining a milder word, would be wholly 
wrong. This must be admitted by any and every mind when 
divested of the prejudices arising from educational faith. Adher- 
ing strictly, however, for a moment or two, to the orthodox 
interpretation of these two words, it will be seen at once how 
inconsistent and exceedingly absurd the Old Testament scriptures 
become. For instance, in Genesis, ch. xxxvii., v. 35, Jacob 
says of his son Joseph : " For I will go down into sheol, unto 
my son, mourning." Certainly, no one can suppose that Jacob 
hoped to go to an orthodox hell, or that such was the most likely 
place to find the exemplary Joseph. And in ch. xlii., v. 38, of 
Genesis, you find Jacob refusing to allow Benjamin to go into 
Egypt with his brethren for fear his gray hairs should be brought 
" down with sorrow to sheoV Surely, it cannot be said that 
the venerable Jacob anticipated making his abode in a place of 
eternal punishment. Again in Job, ch. xiii., v. 17. the afflicted 
patriarch is represented as saying: "If I wait, sheol is my 
house ; I have made my bed in the darkness." And in the 16th 
verse, same chapter, he speaks of going down to sheol for rest. 
Certainly, Job did not think of making his bed in an orthodox 
hell, nor could he expect to enjoy much rest there, if the theo- 
logical ideas of today in regard to it are correct. David, like- 
wise, although said to be a man after God's own heart, in Psalm 
Ixxxviii., V. 3, speaks of his "life drawing nigh unto sheol.'' 
Surely, it will not be asserted that these sages of the Jewish 
scriptures looked forward to being domiciliated in a place of 
eternal torment with the satisfaction they seem at times to have 
expressed. 

To avoid the inconsistency that would thas be presented in 



224 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

the orthodox faith, however, and at the same time still retain 
the doctrine of a hell of torture for the wicked, the translators 
of the King James Bible, in the texts I have just quoted, have 
interpreted the Hebrew word sheol to mean grave or pit. But, 
as must be apparent to every unprejudiced thinker, {/"so signifi- 
cant a word as hell — with the orthodox meaning — be the cor- 
rect translation of sheol in thirty-two passages, then it is the 
grossest insincerity and folly to force a milder interpretation 
with the design of adapting other texts containing this word to 
preconceived notions of individual character. One of these trans- 
lations must certainly be wrong, as they are altogether dis- 
similar in signification. 

But, in continuing my argument against the assumed doc- 
trines of the Bible, permit me to call your attention likewise to 
certain theological claims as to the teachings of the New Testa- 
ment translation. The advocates of eternal punishment for the 
wicked rely also upon the original Greek word hades, which 
occurs eleven times in the Greek Testament, and in the King 
James version is translated ten times hell. But, when the trans- 
lators reached in their labor 1 Corinthians, ch. xv., v. bo, for 
fear it would seem that this monstrous yet strangely cherished 
doctrine of hell would be overthown if they should be consistent 
and uniform in their rendering of the Greek text, they trans- 
lated the word hades as meaning grave. Thus, " O grave, where 
is thy victory?" It would not have served the purpose, you 
perceive, to have this text intimate that hell would not prove 
victorious when all other theological deductions convey the idea 
that at least nine-tenths of the human family are continuously 
wending their way thitherward. And, to this day, it is undoubt- 
edly a fact that certain theologians seem to be actuated by the 
conviction that an eternal hell and endless torment must be 
preached, or religion will go to pieces. If, however, hades 
means an orthodox hell ten times, why not the eleventh ? But 
the truth is that, although many clergymen insist upon relying 
on the letter of the King James Bible, and continue preaching 



HELL. 225 

the doctrine of hell-fire for the impenitent, some of the ablest 
commentators of the Bible, Dr. George Campbell, Moses Stuart, 
and others, declare that the word hades signifies obscure, hidden, 
invisible, and that " it ought never, in Scripture, to be rendered 
helV 

Just here I may remark, in passing, that the learned gentle- 
men to whom I have referred as having recently completed their 
revision of the New Testament have left the Greek noun hades 
untranslated altogether. So that, in the ten instances to which 
I have referred as occurring in the King James version, the 
readers of the revised edition will now find the original word 
hades substituted for the word hell, to which, of course, they 
may furnish a rational interpretation, if so minded. 

But, alas, these revisers, as is done in the King James Bible, 
persist in torturing the Greek noun Tartarus into meaning a 
place of eternal torment. This word occurs but once in the Greek 
of either the Old or the New Testament, and is translated hell 
in 2 Peter, ch. ii., v. 4. A perusal of this text, however, clearly 
shows that the word Tartarus does not refer to a permanent place 
of suffering, but rather to imprisonment for a limited period of 
time. This word Tartarus is believed by a portion of the theo- 
logical school to refer to the atmosphere around the earth, where 
the devils are said to be confined until the day of a general 
judgment. An orthodox clergyman in Chicago some time since 
asserted that " the atmosphere surrounding the earth is hell.'* 
If this be true, then the locality and dimensions of this horrible 
place have been at last ascertained. If the atmosphere extends 
forty-five miles from the earth all around it, as science tells us, 
then the area of hell, according to calculation made by a compe- 
tent party, may be set doWn at eleven billion, two hundred and 
forty-nine million, five hundred and thirty-five thousand, five 
hundred and twenty-eight square miles (11,249,535,528). 

The Greek word Gehenna, however, translated hell twelve 
times in the King James version of the New Testament, we are 
told, is the principal term relied upon to prove the existence of 



226 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

a world of eternal torment. This word is likewise translated 
hell in the revised edition. But, certainly, as has been repeat- 
edly shown, from the Universalist pulpit, especially, this reliance 
is without sufficient warrant. " This word Gehenna is derived 
from the Hebrew words Gi Hinnom, meaning the valley of Hin- 
nom." This was the place outside of the city of Jerusalem, 
where was thrown all the dead carcasses and filth of the place, 
and was not unfrequently the place of executions, since in the 
darkest portion of this ravine was Topheth, where the Israelites 
at times sacrificed their sons and daughters to Moloch (2 Kings, 
xxiii., 10). It became, therefore, extremely offensive, and, to 
preserve the pestilential air in any manner pure, it was necessary 
to keep fires burning there continually. Among the Jews, we 
learn, there were three degrees of condemnation : first, that by 
the judgment; second, that by the council; and third, that by 
the Jire of Hinnom. In the Old Testament the words Gehenna, 
or Gehenna of Jire, which has been translated hell-fire in the 
New, are never used to symbolize eternal punishment or a world 
of woe. The word was used by the ancient Jews, first as the 
name of a literal place, and second as the symbol of utter des- 
truction, or death, not protracted suffering. And, hence, one 
class of Protestant sectarians, the Second Adventists, refer to 
this word in proof of their doctrine of the final destruction of 
the wicked after the general judgment which is anticipated. 
Indeed, this opinion prevailed among the earlier Christians, as 
you doubtless recollect, when it was believed that, at the close 
of the judgment, the heavens were to melt with fervent heat, the 
earth to be consumed by fire, and pass away like a scroll, 
together with all unbelievers, whilst the faithful, secured in some 
mysterious way from fear of harm, would await the new heav- 
ens and the new earth, which were immediately to succeed the 
old. This was the received opinion of the Church, in connection 
with the expected second advent of Jesus for several hundred 
years. But, from the fourth century and onward, as the second 
advent was deferred from age to age, these opinions gave way to 



HELL. 227 

a theology of a more visionary, speculative, and transcendental 
character. Gehenna^ therefore, properly understood, symbolized 
nothing more or less than a miserable and disgraceful death by 
the severest mode of punishment known to the Jews. A Jew 
could have understood the use of this word by Jesus in no other 
sense, as he was supposed to have understood the writings of 
the ancient prophets, and was constantly calling their attention 
to them. There is, therefore, no warrant for imagining that 
Jesus, as a Jewish teacher, used this word in a different sense 
from what the Jewish prophets did. 

Besides, the best writers upon the Old and New Testaments 
agree in declaring that the word Gehenna should never have been 
translated at all any more than the words Babylon, Jerusalem, 
Sodom, or Egypt. These are all names of literal places, and 
all used figuratively in both Testaments. No one is misled by 
these names not being translated. The seventy-two learned 
Jews who translated the Old Testament into Greek, under the 
auspices of Ptolomy Fhiladelphus, two hundred and eighty-four 
years before the birth of Jesus, at Alexandria, left this word 
untranslated. And the work of their minds, the Septuagint, is 
esteemed by linguists as among the highest and best-translated 
authorities. The presumption, therefore, amounts almost to a 
certainty that these learned men, together with the writers of 
the Old Testament, as well as Jesus himself, were never cursed 
with so horrible a dream as that of the modern orthodox hell. 

Again, if orthodox interpretations are to be accepted as cor- 
rect, and the theological declarations as to the existence of a 
local hell be true, then, as the liberal-minded clergy agree, there 
are three distinct hells taught in the Bible, two now in existence, 
and one to be built in the future. First, Hades, designed for the 
occupancy of souls between (so called) death and the general 
judgment; second, Tartarus, the atmosphere, for the present 
home of devils ; and, third, Gehenna, to be provided somewhere 
after the judgment, — that anomalous ordeal through which, 
according to theological teachings, the souls of poor, defenceless 



228 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

liumauity will have to pass, when that indefinite. period, the end 
of the world, shall arrive. 

In addition to the establishment of these three hells, what 
further has been gathered, actually and by reference, from the 
King James Bible ? Let us see. According to Revelation, ch. 
XX., v. 14, Hades, the first hell, is to be destroyed. The second 
hell, or Tartarus, where the prince of devils and his angels 
reside, will of course have an end when he is destroyed ; he can 
then be no longer "the prince of the air," for, I apprehend, the air 
of the new earth will necessarily be too pure for him to reside 
in, that is, if he be as black as he is painted. And as to the 
third hell, or Gehenna, as this word signifies utter destruction, 
the inference is this must likewise fall, after it has served the pur- 
poses of a "valley of slaughter," as Jeremiah terms it in ch. vii., 
V. 32, and ch. xix., v. 6, gince there will be no use for it after God 
has slaughtered all His children. For the inference is likewise 
legitimate that not a single soul will escape the eventual destruc- 
tion in the Gehenna of fire, — since the same creed that teaches 
the existence of this hell likewise declares " there are none that 
doeth good, no, not one,''^ and, in the words of my text, " the 
wicked shall be turned into hell, with all the nations that forget 
God." 

Could any possible conceptions or assumptions, allow me to ask 
in all sincerity, be more monstrously absurd, as well as intensely 
horrible, than are these unavoidable conclusions from orthodox 
premises ? 

One thought more with regard to the advocates of eternal 
punishment. I certainly do not wish to be understood as charg- 
ing such minds with an over-anxiety for the eternal suffering of a 
portion of their fellow-creatures ; but such a thought unavoid- 
ably suggests itself, to some extent at least, when we reflect 
that the best writers in their own text-book, the Bible, furnish 
no authority whatever for their fearful threatenings. This fact, 
it seems to me, in connection with the questionable character of 
the words relied on, as I have shown, should silence such hor- 



HELL. 229 

rible utterances against poor, blind humanity forever. For 
instance, St. Paul preached thirty years, and has fourteen 
epistles attributed to him, and is not known ever to have inti- 
mated the existence of a hell, if he knew or thought there was 
one. And the word "Gehenna " is not found in a single passage 
in the Gospel according to St. John, nor in the Acts of the Apos- 
tles, nor in the Epistles of Peter, nor in the book of Revelation. 
Certainly, this is a most remarkable omission on the part of these 
early pioneers of the Christian dispensation, if it be true, as 
asserted by its modern representatives, that the human race is 
hourly in imminent danger of being cast into everlasting hell- 
fire. 

But, enough for the present in this direction, or I may task 
your patience beyond forbearance. In closing my argument 
thus abruptly, however, let it not be understood that, in reject- 
ing all idea of the existence of an orthodox hell as contrary 
to the unmistakable character of the All- Wise Father of the 
race, and as antagonistic to the innate and prophetic aspirations 
of the human soul, as well as upon Biblical grounds, likewise, as 
I have shown, — let it not be understood, I repeat, that Spirit- 
ualism ignores man's responsibility, either for the commission 
of sin or for the neglect of duty. Far from it, indeed. Whilst 
we reject altogether the orthodox sentiment of Dr. Watts, that 

"A heaven, a hell, and these alone, 
Beyond the present life are known," 

still, we unhesitatingly recognize the fact of both retribution 
and compensation in the future destinies of the race ; and fully 
believe that every violation, or attempted violation of law, 
which includes all false words, and all false deeds, all cruelty 
and oppression, all lust and vanity, all uncharitableness and 
wrong-doing of whatever nature, must inevitably pay the pen- 
alty of the same, through the legitimate outgrowth of the deed 
committed, or the duty neglected ; the penalty being necessarily 
modified or intensified by the conditions and circumstances 



230 UKANSWBRABLE LOGIC. 

attendant thereon, of which, individual consciousness, through 
infinite law, is, and ever will be, the sleepless arbiter. 

And this view of the spiritual school in regard to the condi- 
tions of the next life, it seems to me, is in harmony with the 
character and experiences of the race in this. For, surely, 
none of us have sufficient control of our actions, or of surround- 
ing circumstances in this life, to justify an arbitrary and un- 
qualified decree when it is ended, either of approbation or con- 
demnation. While you sit there listening, and while I stand 
here speaking, who can say what alterations or combinations 
are taking place all around and about us, even in what are termed 
little 'things, without our will or knowledge, to alter materi- 
ally in time the whole course of our contemplated existence in 
eternity ? We are none of us wiser than destiny, and none of us 
can control our fate, boast as we may of our independence and 
free agency ; and the impossibility of doing so is good, very good ; 
or otherwise many an individual craft, now floating securely, 
would have long since been wrecked on the uncertain sea of 
circumstance. Yet, I do not wish to be understood as advocat- 
ing the dogma of predestination, which involves an arbitrary 
decree on the part of an Infinite Mind as to future conditions. 
This is widely different from the incidental results of an unal- 
terable law of cause and effect. To simplify my idea, man's 
career is rather like that of the rubber ball with which your 
children may amuse themselves. The course of the ball is 
determined by the thumps and kicks of those who take part in 
the game, modified in a degree by its own elasticity. In the game 
of life there are both visible and invisible players. Individual 
physical organizations are the instrumentalities of modification, 
or intensification. Human responsibility, therefore, is com- 
prehended in the legitimate results growing out of the manner 
in which the temporary game of existence has been conducted, 
impressed as they necessarily will be upon the consciousness 
of the real or spiritual man, who alone survives the conclusion 
of earth's experiences, which results the diamond-pointed pen 



HELL. 231 

of organic law has rendered unmistakably legible and enduring. 
In other words, — 

"The mind, which is immortal, makes itself 
Eequital for its good or evil deeds ; 
And is absorbed in sufferings or in joy, 
Born from the knowledge of its own deserts.** 



LECTURE XIII. 

THE DEVOTIONAL ELEMENT IN MAN, 
IN CONTRADISTINCTION TO THE DOCTRINE OP TOTAL DEPRAVITY. 

In addition to the cardinal feature of the philosophy and the 
religion of Spiritualism, that angels can, and under harmonious 
conditions do, commune with mortals, the Spiritualist believes 
in the existence of an all-pervading Infinite Spirit, who gov- 
erns man solely by the properties which have been implanted 
within him as an emanation from this omnipotent source, and 
the general laws of nature appertaining thereto. He believes 
that this Infinite Spirit, whom he terms God, is necessarily inex- 
plicable to the finite mind, to be apprehended only through the 
majesty of His works, in the ratio of individual elevation and 
appreciation, under the law of generic progress. He sees the 
evidences of the presence of this infinite principle of good in 
everything by which he is surrounded in the universe, and he 
feels this Divine presence in the pulsings of his own being. 
Independent of written revelation or assumed cosmogonies, he 
realizes that, through the laws of evolution and continuous 
changes in the realm of matter, his God has made 

''A wilderness of worlds ; that His will and strong 
Propelling spirit shook a thousand systems, 
Like golden dew-drops, from his waving wing, 
To roll in beauty through abysmal space, 
And chant the chorus of His Love Divine ; 
That he made the Milky Way to span the sky, 
A starry bow of promise, every drop 

(232) 



THE DEVOTIONAL ELEMENT IN MAN. 233 

That sparkles there a singing, shining world ; 
That he woke the music of the northern harp, — 
The wild, wierd chiming of the Pleiades; 
And hade the arches of the southern sky- 
Reverberate their hallelujahs high, 
And earth's bright realm among the rest, — peopling 
All, — that the harp of truest love 
Should sound amain till Death himself expire ; 
Till truth has made man free immortally, 
And time has turned to dust upon his lyre." 

From the majesty of the universe, therefore, and from the 
intuitions of his soul, the Spiritualist feels that no teacher is 
needed to tell man either through oral or written revelation of 
the existence of a God, and that all dogmatic assumptions and 
teachings in that direction but serve to mystify and confuse 
rather than to instruct and elevate. 

In harmony with this idea of the Infinite source of human 
existence, and the legitimate corollary of the innate divinity, in 
lieu of the doctrine of the total depravity of the race, the philo- 
sophic observer of the past cannot have failed to perceive, says 
an able writer, the influence of two elements at work in man, 
the finite and the infinite, the human and the divine, the material 
and the spiritual. Hence, the wonderful variations and contrasts 
that are manifested in the history of the race ; the singular ebb 
and flow of society ; its revulsions and convulsions ; its seeming 
retrogression, and its progression. In some ages of the world, 
and among some nations, it is true, there is a seeming predomi- 
nance of evil, but ever with a struggle and a tendency toward 
good. The history of man in this connection has been appro- 
priately compared to two streams flowing down from some broad 
table-land, rushing through the gorges and over the valleys of 
time, sometimes converging, at other times diverging; the one 
disturbed and vexed, as if by storms, the other profound in its 
depths, calm and beautiful on its surface, both tending in the 
same direction, and both ultimately destined to the same har- 
monious confluence. 



234 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

But the theological dogmas of the present day, as well as those 
of the past, are opposed to this idea of the organic tendency in 
man toward the good, and are teaching exactly the opposite; 
that instead of being innately good, as Spiritualism teaches, 
man's tendencies from infancy to the grave are all evil. The- 
ology is likewise inculcating the idea that the entire human 
family have descended from one pair ; that this pair, by, at the 
worst, a very puerile offense, forfeited the favor of a personal 
deity, thereby entailing upon all their successors the terrible 
malady of total depravity. Opposed to this fearful conception. 
Spiritualism is teaching that man is many, and not one ; that is, 
that the race is not descended from one pair, created by special 
act of God, but that man is the child of evolution, under Divine 
impulsion, from the kingdoms that have preceded him ; that he 
is the result of generic growth ; and that, in the language of the 
gifted Emerson, " the builder of heaven and earth has not so 
ill-constructed his child that religion can fall out"; in other 
words, that, from the nature of this Infinite source, devotion is 
as natural to man as egoism ; and, further, that 

*'God sends His teachers unto every age, 
To every clime, and race of men, 
With revelations fitted to their growth 
And shape of mind ; nor gives the realm of truth 
Into the selfish rule of one sole race. 
Therefore, each form of worship that hath swayed 
The life of man, and given it to grasp 
The master-key of knowledge, Reverence, 
Enfolds some germ of goodness and of right." 

First, then, as I have said. Spiritualism teaches that man is 
many, and not one. Let us examine this proposition for a few 
moments in the light of science and history. The earth upon 
which we dwell is a globe of about 8000 miles in diameter, 
and about 25,000 miles in circumference. So vast a body can 
be best appreciated by comparison. For instance, a locomotive 
engine running day and night without stopping, at the rate of 



THE DEVOTIONAL ELEMENT IN MAN. 235 

twenty-five miles an hour, would require six weeks to make the 
circuit of the globe ; and if the body of matter composing our 
globe were resolved into a single column, with a base about the 
size of the ''fast-anchored isle " of Great Britain, it would reach 
the enormous height of over four and a half million of millions 
of miles. About fourteen hundred millions of human beings, it 
is estimated, occupy the surface of the earth, and this vast num- 
ber of creatures has been divided by ethnologists into, first, 
families ; second, tribes ; third, races ; and fourth, stocks, or typ- 
ical races, whilst these last have been variously estimated at 
from one to sixty-three. Philologists declare the existence of 
about three thousand languages, and about one thousand differ- 
ent religions, among this immense concourse of human beings. 
Man is spread over the entire globe, from the extreme North, 
where mercury freezes, to the extreme tropics, where ether boils. 
Wherever man has been, with the exception, perhaps, of a few 
islands of the ocean, there has he found his fellow-man, and 
there, too, he has found him characterized by a vehement cling- 
ing to localities with this peculiarity proportionately strong, as 
the nations or tribes were aboriginal and undeveloped. As we 
ascend the scale of civilization, we are assured, men become 
more mercurial, more friendly, and more cosmopolitan ; that 
the Ethiopian, the Malay, and the Polynesian in the present 
day reside for the most part where their fathers resided cen- 
turies ago ; but the Caucasian, in his progressive pathway, has 
borrowed, as it were, the lungs of the fish and the wings of the 
bird, and has gone wherever there has been water to float him, 
or snow or land upon which to stand. 

Archseological research, likewise, sustains the declaration that 
man is many, and not one. Investigation into the history of the 
past as far back as the epoch termed the Fourth Dynasty, that 
is, about three thousand four hundred years before the birth of 
the Nazarene, exhibits unmistakably, we are told, the most dis- 
tinct and positive national characteristics, such as now exist, 
especially between the Asiatic and the Egyptian. 



236 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

Comparative craniology, also, forcibly illustrates the thought 
of many, and not one, in connection with the origin of man, 
wherein it is shown that a striking persistency in the form and 
capacity of the head appears, when the skulls of ancient nations 
have been compared with those of the same nations at the pres- 
ent stage in the history of the world. 

The same idea is conveyed, likewise, by the numberless vases 
taken from the tombs of Etruria, by the pictorial delineations 
of the Chinese annals, by the antique sculptures of India, by the 
venerable ruins of Ninevah, and by the undated tablets of Peru, 
Yucatan, and of Mexico. All of these, learned men declare, 
present such distinct national characteristics as to be distin- 
guishable at a glance. 

Investigate, on the other hand, the history of those nations 
that have been migratory, and have mingled in wars and con- 
quests, becoming thus distributed, as it were, and attempt to 
trace them back to their sources, — such as Rome, Greece, the 
Gauls, — and you will find, by following them back, that they 
do not run to a single race, but that they break into numerous 
streamlets, so to speak, more and more numerous, until lost in 
the desert of the past. 

Another fact in nature, developed by comparatively recent 
scientific investigations, — reasoning by analogy, — goes far to 
establish the assumption that the chief characteristics of the 
multitudes of races now existing upon the earth have ever been 
permanent. I allude to the discoveries of the flora and fauna 
of our earth, — in other words, with regard to the general dis- 
tribution of seed and of animals over the surface of the globe. 
Some of you, doubtless, can recall the lessons of your youth, in 
which was conveyed the then prevalant idea of Christendom, that 
the seed of all fruit, flowers, and grain originated i-n the fabled 
Garden of Eden ; and from thence, through the agency of the 
winds and other causes to mankind unknown, were distributed 
over the face of the earth. Also, that the animals had their 
origin, primarily, at that famous but still unknown spot; and, 



THE DEVOTIONAL ELEMENT IN MAN. 237 

secondarily, that they proceeded from that remarkable herd that 
is said to have come forth from the Ark, after the subsidence 
of the waters of the mythical flood so vividly impressed upon 
our childish imaginations. But scientific discoveries have entirely 
obliterated these adolescent fancies in harmony with the Adamic 
account of the origin of the earth and its productions. It is now 
authoritatively declared that the various families of plants are 
naturally confined to particular countries ; and that latitude, soil, 
elevation, and climate are but secondary causes in the distribu- 
tion. The same law holds good, also, in regard to the fauna 
of earth, that is, the congregation of animals, both of the land and 
sea ; since one of the most distinguished scientists of the present 
age has demonstrated that the boundaries within which the natu- 
ral combinations of animals are known to be circumscribed on 
the face of the earth coincide with the natural range of distinct 
types of man. And this, he adds, is a most impressive view, forc- 
ing the inference upon the mind that this can be no chance col- 
location ; that plants, and animals, and men have not assumed 
this arrangement through casual influences ; but that it denotes 
a great general plan, by which all the myriad spheres of life 
have been disposed and co-ordinated into a grand organic whole, 
wherein the organized life of the globe is distributed into distinct 
circles and spheres, larger and smaller, the less developed plants 
and animals constituting the several circumferences, and certain 
advanced races of men constituting the several centers. 

This brief summary of facts in nature, as it seems to me, is 
sufficient on the present occasion in illustration of the truthful- 
ness of my first proposition, — that man is many, and not one. 

In advocacy of my second proposition, — that the devotional 
element in man is innate ; that the tendencies of the different 
races of men have ever been toward good instead of evil, — I pro- 
pose to offer a brief review of the moral and religious proclivi- 
ties of the leading nations of the earth as manifested during the 
ages that have preceded our own, from the history of which, it 
is evident to my own mind, at least, that an innate conception 



288 UlirANSWEEABLE LOGIC. 

of some Deific power superior to man, and a belief in the im- 
mortality of the human soul, more or less definitely entertained 
and expressed, have been among the primary recognitions of 
human consciousness. 

And, first, permit me to refer to the history of the ancient peo- 
ple dwelling in the land of the Indus, Hindustan. We are told 
that the Hindoos, from times coeval with the most authentic rec- 
ords have been able to calculate eclipses, and that within their 
sacred temples are to be found the twelve signs of the Zodiac, 
represented by almost precisely the same emblems that are today 
in use in Christendom. Their observations of the heavenly 
bodies extend back over five thousand years. The Sanscrit lan- 
guage, in which their sacred books are written, is so ancient that 
no people have been discovered who spoke it ; and their mytho- 
logical sculptures, covering immense masses of rock, are said to 
be so ancient as to render the Pyramids of Egypt young in 
comparison. These people estimate the age of the world mil- 
lions of years back of the date given by Biblical chronology. 
They state that the earth has passed through three eras thus far 
in its existence ; that the fourth era was entered about five 
thousand years since ; and that, although this fourth era is to be 
very much shorter than either of the others, it still has to con- 
tinue about four hundred and thirty thousand years. Their 
records certainly give evidence of great antiquity, and, also, of 
the fact that these ancient people have always believed in 
a God,—- in essentially a good God. For, be it known, the 
character of the Hindoo God, which has been more or less defi- 
nitely ascertained by learned men in their investigations of the 
sacred books of Hindustan, far excels in benignity that of the 
Jehovah of the Jews ; and, indeed, it is declared that no esti- 
mate of God presented by what are deemed the most advanced 
nations of the earth at the present day surpasses in benevolence 
and wisdom that given of their deity in the Hindoo Vedas, or 
sacred books. But they found great difficulty in accounting for 
the origin and existence of evil ; they did not, however, attrib- 



THE DEVOTIONAL ELEMENT IN MAN. 239 

ute it to a bad God or devil, second only in power to their good 
God. They had a number of theories bearing upon this ques- 
tion, the most prominent of which was that the union of spirit 
and matter in man produced sin, sickness, and death ; in other 
words, that the sinfulness of matter resulted in the depravity 
and suffering of human nature. About the opening of the 
fourth century the Christian mind began to be affected by this 
old Eastern doctrine. With it came celibacy, monasticism, 
penance, vigils, fasting, and other most unnatural devices of 
superstitious mind and morbid feeling through which God was 
sought to be propitiated, and the soul elevated to communion 
with celestial beings. The writings of such men as Augustine, 
Jerome, Chrysostom, and Athanasius greatly favored these 
doctrines, and they became at length a portion of the creed of 
the Catholic Church. Hence, the gratifications of sense were 
shunned as corrupting, and the external world put under ban as 
the possession and domain of the devil. When the Protestant 
Reformation, as it is termed, took place, these ideas were not 
altogether discarded, since the Protestant orthodox theology of 
today is characterized by the same vagueness and repulsive 
coldness, a refining away, as it were, of everything human and 
emotional, until it is lost in a general splendor of imagery, as 
beautiful, perhaps, but to the loving soul of the race as cold 
and as uninviting, as the Aurora Borealis. 

So that the Hindoos, however otherwise in error, at a very 
early period, long prior to the date of the introduction of man 
upon the earth by the Mosiac account, were searching after a 
knowledge of God, and serving him according to their highest 
conception of duty. 

Indeed, modern culture is beginning to feel a reverence for 
the religious light of the East, so long despised, under the in- 
fluence of theological teachings ; and modern writers have given 
amazing revelations of the rich treasures of Asiatic meditative 
religious philosophy, and of many sweetnesses and simplicities 
of Buddhistic and Brahmanical life, notably Edwin Arnold, in 



240 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC 

his " Light of Asia," and Friedrich Buckert, in his " Wisdom 
of the Brahman." " Brahmanism was to Buddhism," says a 
recent writer, " about what Judaism is to Christianity, the older 
and less ethereal consecration of the soul of man to its own 
highest ideal." And yet Buckert gives the following as a speci- 
men of the devotional tendency of the Brahmanical mind : — 

" How still the candle burns, when sheltered from the wind ! 
So burns devotion's flame within a tranquil mind." 

*' No bounds of time or space can compass God around ; 

Whene'er, where'er, He works, God then and there is found ; 

And God works all the time, and God works through all space ; 

Forever is His time, and every where His place; 

He is the center. He circumference also, 

World's end, and Genesis ; His breathings ebb and flow." 

"The light of God hath come into this world of night; 
We are aroused, and can no longer sleep for light." 

Between the Hindoo and the Egyptian an ancient intimacy 
existed ; and the latter-named likewise taught, especially to the 
higher classes, the existence of one Great Father Soul, from 
whom emanated all other souls ; and this great and good God, 
as they esteemed him, they never attempted to portray in either 
their paintings or sculpture. Their minor gods were but the 
emblematical representatives of the one Universal Soul. The 
renown of Egypt in religion, in the arts, and in the sciences 
attracted thither at an early day many illustrious men of other 
nations. Josephus says that Abraham visited Egypt to become 
an auditor of her priests, and to compare their religious ideas 
with his own. Herodotus, the oldest Greek historian, went 
thither about four hundred and forty-eight years before Christ. 
Plato, the celebrated philosopher, also visited Egypt ; so, like- 
wise, did Solon, the Greek law-giver. The Egyptians claimed 
great antiquity ; and Plato states that, upon one occasion, when 
Solon was conversing with the Egyptian priests with regard to 



THE DEVOTIONAL ELEIVIENT IN MAN. 241 

what he deemed ancient events, one of the priests exclaimed : 
" Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children." These ancient 
people, as I have said, believed in and taught the existence of 
one Eternal Source of being, clearly illustrative in part, at least, 
of the truth of my general assumption as to the universal exist- 
ence in some form of such an idea. 

The Chinese claim a very remote antiquity, likewise, their 
traditions going back millions of years. Modern scholars have 
satisfied themselves that this people accurately calculated an 
eclipse two thousand one hundred and fifty-one years before 
Christ. la their idolatry they recognize, especially among the 
higher classes, " One Invisible Being," " One G-reat First Cause." 
The greatest name among them was that of Confucius, a moral 
teacher of the fairest reputation. He was born 551 years before 
Jesus of Nazareth ; and 500 years before Jesus was born had 
given utterance to what is now termed the " golden rule," and 
believed by many to have been original in the New Testament, 
" Never do to others what you would not have them do to you." 
The Chinese have a tradition that Confucius was born of a vir- 
gin, who conceived him from the rays of a star. 

Chaldea, likewise, is of undoubted antiquity. When their 
famous capital, Babylon, was captured by Alexander, the Chal- 
dean priests boasted to the Greek philosophers who followed 
his army that they had continued their astronomical calculations 
through a period of more than 40,000 years. The Chaldeans 
also believed in one Supreme Being, and a multitude of subor- 
dinate deities, the principal one of whom was Baal. 

Persia, likewise, was not without a God in the ages that have 
passed. Their great teacher, Zoroaster, combined the elements 
of the Persian faith into a system comprehended in the Zend- 
Avesta, which signifies the " Living Word." They believed this 
to be a portion of the primeval word by which creation was 
produced, and that every syllable of it possessed an inherent 
virtue. They believed in a good God, Ormuzd, and a bad God, 
Arimanes. The former, they were taught, created the world 



242 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

in six successive periods. When all was finished, he devoted a 
seventh period to a festival with the good spirits. These ideas 
are not dissimilar to certain orthodox dogmas of the present 
day. The Persian faith, however, has the advantage to the 
extent that the Zend-Avesta gives hope to the wicked after their 
probation of suffering shall have passed, corresponding somewhat 
to the Catholic idea of purgatory. 

The ancient Greeks and Romans have been denounced as 
idolatrous and innately depraved, but the most enlightened 
minds among them believed in one Supreme Being, and this 
belief, we learn from the pages of the best authors, became 
more distinct as knowledge increased. Allow me to present a 
few poetical and philosophical ideas from some .of the thinkers 
of Greece and Rome, illustrative of the tendency of their minds 
toward the recognition of a ruling power in the universe. 

Eusebius, one of the early church Fathers, in a work entitled 
" Preparatia Evangelica," quotes from a lost tragedy of Euripi- 
des the following : - — 

"Thou self-sprung Being that doth all enfold, 
And in thine arms Heaven's whirling fabric hold." 

How forcibly this couplet reminds us of Bryant when, speak- 
ing of the Deity, he says : — 

" Whose love doth keep 
In his complaisant arms the earth, the air, the deep," — 

the one uttered by an alleged heathen, the other by a professed 
Christian. 

The " Sibylline Oracles," indorsed by the philosophic Plato, 
have the following : — 

" One God there is, alone, great, uncreated, 
Omnipotent, invisible, seeing all, 
Himself unseen by mortal flesh." 

The following is from the works of Pausanias : " Zeus was, 
Zeus is, Zeus shall be, O Great Zeus." 



THE DEVOTIONAL ELEMENT LN^ MAN. 243 

The name Zeus is synonymous with Jove, and is derived from 
the verb signif^dng to live. 

Zenophanes, one of the early philosophical writers, in one of 
his productions, exclaims : " There is but one God alone, the 
greatest of gods and of mortals, neither in body to mankind 
resembling, neither in ideas." 

Pythagoras taught the existence of " One God as an essence, 
and, likewise, the immortality of the human soul, as well as the 
reality and eternity of virtue." 

Plato declared his philosophical teachings to be a " God-given 
Wisdom." 

Socrates inculcated the evidences of adaptation and design in 
the universe as proofs of the existence and moral government 
of God. 

Seneca, in his 41st letter to his friend Lucilius, says : " God 
is near you, is with you, is within you. A sacred spirit dwells 
within us, the observer and guardian of all our evil and our 
good. . . . There is no good man without God." 

Does this not forcibly remind you of St. Paul's declaration 
(1 Cor., ch. iii., v. 16) : " Know ye not that ye are the temple 
of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you " ? 

Epictetus, in his manual, reproduced by his pupil, Arian, 
among many other beautiful injunctions, says : "If you always 
remember that, in all you do in soul or body, God stands by as 
a witness, in all your prayers and your actions, you will not err, 
and you shall have God dwelling with you." 

Again : " And to what better or more careful guardian could 
he have entrusted us ? So that, when you have closed your 
doors and made darkness within, remember never to say that you 
are alone, for you are not alone ; God is present there, and your 
guardian spirit, and what need of light have they to see what 
you are doing ? " 

Marcus Aurelius, the last of the pagan Emperors of Rome, 
with Seneca and Epictetus, just named, was a stoical philosopher, 
and was admittedly one of the purest and best of men that ever 



244 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

lived. He was the author of a work now receiving the title of 
his " Meditations, or Thoughts," which is replete with the most 
exalted ethical and philosophical truths. It has been translated 
into the French, Italian, Spanish, and English languages, and 
is esteemed the "purest and noblest book of antiquity." A 
modern Christian author says very forcibly : " In the sad ' Medi- 
tations' of Marcus Aurelius, we find a pure serenity, sweetness, 
and docility to the commands of God which before him were 
unknown. . . One cannot read his book, unique in the history 
of pagan philosophy without thinking of the sadness of Pascal 
and the gentleness of Fenelon. We must pause before this soul, 
so lofty and so pure, to contemplate ancient virtue in its softest 
brilliancy, to see the moral delicacy to which profane doctrines 
have attained ; how they laid down their pride, and how pene- 
trating a grace they have found in their new simplicity." For 
myself, I would advise the closest study of this work to any man 
or woman who seeks improvement in morals or advancement 
in happiness, be they Christian or atheist, Jew or Gentile. 

But permit me to offer one more extract from a Greek author. 
The Apostle Paul, in his address before the Athenian Areopa- 
gus (Acts, ch. xvii., V. 28), recognizes the religious spirit of the 
past in favor of which I am arguing, in his reference to the 
" unknown God " whom he said was ignorantly worshiped. 
Paul, it is understood by students, referred to a paraphrase, 
written by Aratus of Tarsus, of a lost poem by the Greek poet 
Eudoxus, in which he exclaims : — 

"With Jove we must begin, nor from him rove, 
Him always praise, for all is full of Jove. 
Jove's presence fills all space, upholds this ball, 
All need his aid, his power sustains us all; 
For we his offspring are, and he in love 
Points out to man his labor from above." 

This paraphrase, we are told, was written three hundred and 
seventy years before the birth of Jesus, and it is certainly ques- 
tionable whether any language in the entire fourteen Epistles 



THE DEVOTIONAIj ELEMENT IN MAN. 245 

of Paul more forcibly or more beautifully recognizes the exist- 
ence of a God as the common Father of us all. 

Permit me now to refer to the history of the ancient Jews in 
confirmation of the idea I am attempting to enforce. This peo- 
ple are condemned by the Christians for lapsing into alleged 
idolatry, although designated as the chosen people of God. But 
I am not disposed to condemn them altogether. This denounced 
misdirection on their part, in erecting a golden calf, and in 
seeking other gods than Jehovah, was unmistakable evidence 
on the part of the Jewish mind that they were not satisfied with 
the God whom Moses had given them, and consequently were 
searching for another deity. True, in doing so they may have 
committed an error; but that fact does not detract from the 
intrinsic merit of the impelling motive, the progressive tendency 
that actuated them. Agitation of mind, we are told, is the begin- 
ning of wisdom, and agitation of mind, even in the wrong direc- 
tion, is ultimately safer and better than a dull, lethargic assent, 
or a blind faith, as to what may be dictated on so important a 
theme as the exercise of devotion on the part of the human soul. 
Further on in their history, during the days of the Maccabees, 
and in the age just preceding the birth of Jesus, it is declared, 
there was an evident struggle on the part of a portion of the 
Jewish people after some higher recognition of the divine, or at 
least after something better and higher. But, still, so material 
was the tendency of the general mind, that they resolved their 
conclusions into nothing more elevated than the reconstruction 
of a temporal or earthly kingdom. 

During the reign of the Asmonean kings, under the influence 
of the organic tendency of which I am speaking, the sect of the 
Pharisees sprang into existence. They sought originally to 
restore the faith of their fathers to what they conceived to be 
its primitive integrity ; but, increasing in numerical strength, and 
in wealth, and consequent importance, they grew proud and am- 
bitious, evincing still the predominance of the material. I am 
afraid that even in the present day may be found more than one 



246 UNANSWERABLE LOaiC. 

parallel to the Pharisee even among some professedly free 
religionists. 

A portion of the Jewish mind was partially prepared for the 
recognition of Jesus as a moral teacher, when he presented what 
to the majority was an entirely new idea. So utterly material, 
however, as I have said, was the general tendency of the age, 
and of the nation, that they could not conceive of the beautiful 
spirituality of the man, nor the lesson of exalted humanity 
which he sought to convey. And, my friends, although more 
than eighteen hundred years have elapsed since his advent, 
many today it is feared, who name themselves his followers, 
have but slight conception of the true character of the JSTazarene. 
Scholastic theology has dogmatically given its definition of the 
mission of Jesus, differing very essentially, as it seems to me, 
from what he himself declared to be the relation existing between 
himself and his fellow-men, his God and their God, his Father 
and their Father. His life and manifestations stand out unmis- 
takably perceptible upon the unrolled panorama of time as, per- 
haps, up to that period, the most beautiful individual evidence 
of the divinity and spirituality of the entire human family. He 
fully exemplified, indeed, what Theodore Parker termed " the 
possibility of the race made reoV But, as I have said, his char- 
acter and mission were not, as I apprehend, and still are not, 
appreciated except by a minority of modern thinkers. A special 
Divinity has been assigned him, and he has been termed the very 
God himself, whilst, in fact and in the light of advancing reason, 
he was but a beautiful moral teacher in his day and generation, 
bringing " life and immortality to light " to the clouded compre- 
hension of the ancient Jew, teaching the Jew the knowledge of 
this great truth, which had been taught by heathen nations in 
varied forms for full a thousand years. 

In further illustration of the object of my discourse, when the 
Spaniards invaded Mexico and Peru, they found, we are told 
by the historian, an " abiding faith in a God, and in immortality." 
Roman Catholic missionaries, in their early travels, found %^qv^- 



THE DEVOTIONAL ELEMENT IN MAN. 247 

where, even on the distant islands of the oceans, a firmly-rooted 
belief in the existence of some Supreme Being, and in a future 
state. The North American Indians, when first visited by- 
Europeans, entertained beautiful conceptions of a Great Spirit, 
and of a happy hunting-ground. We are told that more recent 
explorers of Africa found among its most ignorant inhabitants 
the recognition of a God, and of a future state. And thus is 
indicated that all nations and all men everywhere, independent 
of the Christian plan of salvation, have entertained a soul-con- 
sciousness oi God and of immortality, more or less definitely or 
indefinitely expressed. Hence, the assumption of the innate 
depravity of the race is seen to be wholly without foundation 
in fact, and must have been born of a darkened imagination in 
some dark hour of human existence. For, surely, such a fearful 
conception is at war with the character of a God worthy to be 
loved and reverenced. It is at war with all the intuitions and 
affections of the human soul, and is likewise at war, as I have 
briefly shown, with human experience, as exemplified in the 
history of the race. 

Again, let us follow the history of human faiths and human 
development along the more familiar and more recent pathways 
of thought down to the present era of investigation. And, allow- 
ing a common honesty to our fellow-men, what are the evidences 
touching the question at issue ? What idea can we gather from 
the fact that Adrian I. combined the elements of the Papacy 
into the Roman Catholic Church, but that he and his contempo- 
raries believed in the discovery and in the promulgation of a 
higher conception of God than had been previously entertained ? 
What other idea can we entertain of the Protestant Reforma- 
tion, as it is termed, than that the Protestants of Europe believed 
they had found a better God than Roman Catholicism had fur- 
nished ? Why did John Wesley, in his devotional enthusiasm, 
introduce and enjoin new modes and methods of worship from 
those of the Church of England but that he believed he had 
found a different God, with different requirements, from those 



248 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

recommended by the Archbishop of Canterbury ? The exist- 
ence, likewise, of the numerous orthodox sects of the day furnish 
additional evidence in favor of the general idea I am attempting 
to enforce, whilst the broader and more beautiful platforms of 
the liberal churches, in like manner, demonstrate that the hu- 
man mind is still in search of grander and nobler conceptions 
of the infinite source of all that is. 

In conclusion, this is likewise true as regards the aspirations 
and convictions of the spiritual school of today, which constitutes 
the latest phase of religious thought, and which claims that its 
philosophical and ethical conclusions are based upon demon- 
strated facts essentially in harmony with the known laws of 
nature. The evolution theory of physical science has undoubt- 
edly had a corresponding influence upon the devotional ideas of 
the centuries as to their outward manifestations in the history 
of the race. As the physical sciences are enabled to trace the 
physical man through all the different phases of life incidental 
to the various kingdoms which constitute the splendid macro- 
cosm of the material universe up to his present stage of physical 
and intellectual development ; so, in like manner, may it be said 
that religious thought, in the practical manifestation of its innate 
properties in the life of man, has advanced out of idolatry, black 
superstition, religious wars, persecutions, and burnings at the 
stake, together with most of the horrible teachings of dogmatic 
theology, and that devotional ideas, as a consequence, are becom- 
ing more and more manifestly spiritual. 

Let us hope that the progress of religious ideas may become 
more practically operative and more essentially evident until 
all errors of the past shall be entirely obliterated, as all nations 
and people imbibe loftier conceptions as to the dealings of the 
divine in nature, as well as a truer realization of the duties and 
destiny of the soul ; and when, through the ministry of angels, 
all hearts shall rejoice in the fullest realization of the common 
fatherhood of God and the common brotherhood of man. 



LECTURE XIV. 



THANKS GIVING DAT. 

*'I do not like to hear him pray 

Who loans at twenty-five per cent, 
For then I think the borrower may 

Be pressed to pay for food and rent ; 
And in that book you 're taught to heed, 

Which says the lender shall be blessed, 
As sure as you have eyes to read, 

It does not say ' take interest.' 

I do not like to hear him pray 

On bended knees about an hour, 
For grace to spend aright the day, 

Who knows his neighbor has no flour; 
I 'd rather see him go to mill, 

And buy the luckless brother bread, 
And see his children eat their fill, 

And laugh beneath their humble shed. 

I do not like to hear him pray 

' Let blessings on the widow be,' 
Who never seeks her home to say 

' If want o'ertakes thee, come to me.* 
I hate the prayer so loud and long 

That's offered for the orphan's weal 
By him who sees them crushed by wrong, 

And only with the lips doth feel. 

I do not like to hear her pray, 

With jeweled ear and silken dress, 

Whose washerwoman toils all day. 
And then is asked to work for less. 

(249) 



250 UNAlJ^S WEE ABLE LOGIC. 

Such pious souls all should despise, 

With folded hands and airs demure, 
Who lift to heaven their angel eyes 

Whilst using thus the worthy poor. 

I do not like those prayers to hear 

Which tell the living God of all 
Whom he should bless, or when forbear, 

Or whom on earth the rain should fall. 
Nor yet those prayers that seek relief 

'Gainst nature's laws, or through pretence 
Of some inherited belief 

Devoid of truth and evidence. 

I do not like such soulless prayers. 

If wrong, I hope to be forgiven, 
No angel wing them upward bears, • 

They 're lost a million miles from heaven. 
I do not like long prayers to hear. 

And studied from the lips depart ; 
Our Father lends a ready ear, — 

Let words be few, — He hears the heart." 

Once in every year Thanksgiving Day is observed throughout 
the length and breadth of our land, with more or less of enjoy- 
ment, proportioned to mental conditions and individual surround- 
ings. The celebration of a day of thanksgiving was at one 
time confined entirely to the New England States, and had a 
double origin. The one arose from the feeling of thankfulness 
entertained by the people of Plymouth colony for success in 
their newly tried agricultural and social arrangements. The 
other originated in a sense of gratitude for the triumph of the 
Protestant arms at a particular period in the history of the 
religious wars of Europe, from whence the Puritans had then but 
recently fled under pressure of religious persecution. The first 
celebration was in December, 1621, under the auspices of Gov. 
Bradford, in gratitude, as stated by him, for the excellent crop 
of everything that had been sown on "the plantation, — that 
they might rejoice together in a special manner after they had 



THANKSGIVING DAY. 251 

gathered of their labors." The second occasion to which I have 
referred arose from a different cause altogether, as follows : 
Gustavus Adolj^hus ascended the throne of Sweden in 1611. 
In 1629, 1630, 1631, and 1632 the Emperor of Austria, aided 
by the King of Spain and the Pope of Rome, was prosecuting 
a war of persecution against the Protestants of the free states 
of Germany. Sweden was a Protestant realm, and her king 
determined to draw the sword and mingle likewise in the strife, 
so irreligiously carried on in the name of the Good Man of Peace. 
In 1630 he gained two victories over the Catholic troops. In 
1631 he formed an alliance with the Saxons, and defeated the 
Austrian army at Leipzig, under the Austrian commander Til- 
ley ; and during the same year he overthrew the Catholic forces 
again, when Tilley was slain. The Austrian Emperor then 
placed at the head of the Catholic troops Wallenstein, one of 
the most renowned of the generals who figured during the ter- 
rible thirty years of religious warfare that carried such desola- 
tion throughout Europe. Another great engagement between 
the Catholic and Protestant troops took place in November, 
1632. Gustavus Adolphus was killed early in the action, but 
his army gained a complete victory. And the second Thanks- 
giving celebration to which I have referred took place in Ply- 
mouth colony in commemoration of this triumph of the Protest- 
ant cause. This celebration, because of its association with the 
fall of the great Protestant leader, partook somewhat of a somber 
cast, very naturally. And it is to be regretted that this gloomy 
feeling upon Thanksgiving occasions seems to prevail to some 
extent even in the present day among the more austere religion- 
ists, for what reason I am at a loss to conceive, unless it be that, 
under the influence of orthodox teachings, in the language of 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, " some people always sigh in 
thanking God." But, generally, most people very properly 
observe the day as one of innocent festivity, cheerfulness, and 
gratitude, amid the happiness engendered by family and friendly 
reunions. The pleasures of the table, likewise, the theater, the 



252 mSTANSWERABLB LOGIC. 

circus, and the dance constitute interesting features of the day 
with some ; gay laughter, happy smiles, and frolicsome revelry 
gladden the hearts of many,— all evincing in a greater or less 
degree the gratitude of the people to the Giver of every good, 
the common Father of us all. 

Another custom, likewise, has obtained in our larger cities, 
especially, — a beautiful, a beatifying, a holy custom, — that of 
administering as far as possible to the wants of the poor and 
needy. When aching human hearts are led to forget their sor- 
rows for a time, through the wealth of practical sympathy be- 
stowed by other human hearts less desolate, the angels smile, 
and the broad arches of the higher life echo with increasing joy, 
in thus witnessing human hearts made glad through human 
effort. But, alas, how prone we are to overlook the great duty, 
with its consequent great happiness of aiding and comforting 
others ? Instead of this we are too apt to seek for sorrow and 
discontent for ourselves, and, when found, seemingly we set about 
nursing our gloom so persistently that, with a great deal of truth, 
it may be said of some that they are never happy unless they 
are miserable. One whines over man's ingratitude ; another 
takes to heart the scorn of the prosperous ; another broods over 
his or her merit neglected, or good deeds forgotten. Man, too, 
very frequently, doubles all the evils of his fate by pondering 
over them; a scratch becomes a wound; a slight an injury; a 
jest an insult ; a small peril a great danger ; and a light sickness 
sometimes ends in physical death by the brooding apprehensions 
of the individual ; while even some good Spiritualists, and other 
liberal thinkers, momentarily forgetful of the glories and beau- 
ties of their divine philosophy, or their majestic platform of free 
religious thought, are too apt to murmur 

" When their sky is clear, 
And wholly fair to view, 
If but a little speck appear 
In their great heaven of blue." 

" But, were we wise, and did good without thought of thanks ; 



THANKSGIVING DAY, 253 

were we bright in mind, and found pleasure in the mind's exer- 
cise ; were we truly fraternal and sisterly, and found happiness 
in the joy of others, we would merit more and repine less, and 
be the surer of our reward in the end." For, let metaphysicians 
and fashionable theologians say and do what they may, it is a 
great truth that ought to be remembered on Thanksgiving Day, 
if at no other time, but all the better if recollected at all times, 
that those who with willing hearts participate in loving service 
to humanity, whether Catholic or Protestant, saint or sinner, 
atheist or deist, infidel or Spiritualist, whatever their faith, or 
their want of it, sound a loftier note of praise, and offer a sweeter 
strain of gratitude than ever sounded from pulpit oratory, or 
than ever echoed in cathedral aisles from the rounded periods 
of the high-toned and richly-decorated prayer. 

Not that I would wish to be understood as saying that Spirit- 
ualism ignores prayer, as is alleged by its opponents, or even 
verbal gratitude, when one has none other to offer. It is only 
the fashionable mode and customary method of prayer that the 
school which I represent objects to. On the contrary, it teaches 
that the impulse to aspiration, or inward prayer, is innate, and 
one of the collateral evidences of the divinity and immortality 
of the human soul. The atheist has said that the predisposition 
to prayer so common to the human mind originated in man's 
ignorance and fears of the phenomena of nature ; that it is fear 
or ignorance which, " when rocked the mountains, or when 
groaned the ground, taught the weak to bend, the proud to 
pray." But, as argued by Bulwer and others, the brutes are 
more forcibly impressed in one sense by natural phenomena 
than man. The bird and the beast seem to know better than we 
do when the mountain will rock or the ground groan ; and their 
instinct leads them to shelter, but not to prayer. As I have 
said, one strong^ arijument in favor of the existence of an immor- 
tal principle in man, as I conceive, is to be found in his inherent 
capacity to receive ideas from and to be impressed by nature 
herself, with some conception of a power superior to and acting 



254 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

upon and through nature, with which divine power he may 
establish communion more or less direct, through intermediate 
angelic agency, and through that passive receptivity which is 
superinduced by the earnest aspiration of the soul, or inward 
prayer, as well as by other agencies of individual harmoniza- 
tion. And this communion, I may add, we know to be the best 
engendered, and best preserved, through the blessed agency of 
our dear departed ones, whose love has been greatly enhanced 
since they passed through the flower-encircled portals of the 
beautiful hereafter. Spiritualism does object, however, as did 
Jesus of Nazareth, to the necessity of those wordy public 
prayers uttered to be heard of men ; it does object to those mis- 
taken appeals to Deity, as an angry tyrant, to be appeased by 
the ignoring of that noble selfhood with which his creatures 
have been endowed, and of which all true manhood and true 
womanhood should ever be laudably proud ; it does object to 
that rhapsodical method of taking heaven by stormy prayers, 
such as are generally exercised by revivalists, praying bands, 
and evangelists, by and through which sinners are psychologized 
and supposed to be converted into a sort of spasmodic piety, 
without, it is to be feared, any abiding advantage. It repudiates 
entirely that style of prayer which conveys the idea of a partial 
and revengeful deity, a special providence which arbitrarily 
blesses one man for his belief and damns another for his disbe- 
lief, when both conditions of mind are equally natural as the 
result of the organism, antecedents, and surroundings of each ; 
and it does most emphatically ignore all prayer that implies the 
changeableness of God's laws or the mutability of God's pur- 
poses. Hence, Spiritualists generally do not admit the neces- 
sity of public prayers upon their rostrums, although the practice 
obtains with some, and thus is practically removed from the 
minds of their representatives on the rostrum the temptation of 
that glittering but sacriligious bauble of ecclesiastical ambition, 
to be considered " highly gifted or mighty in prayer." 

In illustration of the absurd length to which some minds can 



THANKSGIVING DAY. 255 

be carried who believe in the efficacy of prayer, independent of 
the known laws of nature, I was told by a reliable person, resid- 
ing on the banks of the upper Mississippi, of an actual occur- 
rence in that region. During a protracted drouth, a minister 
was asked to pray for rain. As is often the case in that section 
of the country, a violent storm of wind and rain occurred soon 
after the compliance of the minister with the request made, with 
considerable loss of property as the consequence. Of course, 
the storm was believed to be due to the intense ardor of the 
minister's prayer. The following year a similar drouth existed, 
and the minister was again called on to pray for rain, with the 
additional request that the Lord would modify His answer to 
the extent of giving them much less rain than he had sent the 
previous year. In compliance with the desire of his congre- 
gation, the next Sabbath the minister uttered an earnest and 
lengthy prayer for rain, concluding as follows : " But, O Lord, 
we beg of Thee do not give us such a terrible drenching as 
Thou didst last year. It is not needed now, O Lord, but Thou 
canst just let it drizzle-drozzle for about a week." 

Another and more rational minister, however, when asked to 
pray for rain, in the same section of country, replied that he 
would do so if the congregation desired it; but, for his own 
part, he saw no use in praying unless the wind changed. 

But, permit me to refer again to one of the beautiful customs 
of Thanksgiving Day, already adverted to, — a custom which, I 
trust, may endure as long as rivers run unto the sea, — as long 
as the holy ties of consanguinity and the bonds of human love 
proclaim the falsity of the assumption that man is totally de- 
praved, — -I mean the rendering of Thanksgiving Day an annual 
family festival. This custom is becoming general in almost 
every part of our country ; but it was formerly mainly confined 
to New England, — rock-bound New England, whose wintry 
winds are a terror, but whose warm hearts are a blessing ; and 
whose comprehensive brains are a power in the land. Nothing 
can be more touching than a convocation of the family circle 



256 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

upon such occasions, — the honored father, the dear, kind, old 
mother, the devoted brothers and sisters, with their loving hus- 
bands and wives, and the dear little children, — all met together, 
for one day at least, free from the turmoils and trials incident 
to the battle-field of life. No scene is more beautiful on earth 
than the one where love presides. Oh, the joys of pure, una- 
dulterated human love, sweetest boon from the land of the beau- 
tiful, — divine emanation from the Great Heart of the Infinite, 
— thou art as enduring as are the pillars of the Temple of our 
God. 

But, on the other hand, amid the changes incidental to an 
earthly existence, when the family circle has been called together 
on such occasions, one or more vacancies may have occurred 
since last you met ; the old arm-chair may have become vacant, 
or the nursing-chair, or the little, high chair, or the cradle, — 
some one of which, that had its occupant a year previous, may 
now be vacant, — that dear father, whose loving words or stern 
rebuke made you a better man or woman, or was designed to 
do so, may be absent ; perhaps the dear, kind-hearted, loving 
mother, whose affectionate heart never grew cold to you, but 
clung the closer as the world grew dark, — she who shrinks not 
when men cower, and grows stronger when man faints, and over 
the waste of worldly fortune sends the radiance of her quench- 
less fidelity, like a star; she, too, perhaps, may have become 
invisible to the natural eye ; or, perhaps, the pale angel of 
organic law may have called during the year for a beloved wife 
or husband, sister or brother, child or friend, and the family 
circle on earth has thus become incomplete. And, oh, how sadly 
incomplete it seems, as you turn for consolation to the dogmas 
of the fashionable church, or the orthodox minister of the day, 
when, in consonance with the doctrine of a material resurrection, 
he tells you practically to seek your beloved, but departed, ones 
beneath some fresh mound in a cemetery, or, perhaps, in a more 
distant sod. " Oh, sad, doubly sad, would be the so-called Thanks- 
giving Day of our nation were it indeed true that the ceme- 



THANKSGIVING DAY. 257 

tery of the soul, as well as of the body, could be reached by the 
street cars. 

With reference to Thanksgiving Day, as observed by the 
nation, I may remark, first, that it is undoubtedly a fact that 
history assumes its adequate significance only when regarded 
as a grand intellectual and moral method, a continuous demon- 
stration of which, through infinite methods of intermediation, 
God constitutes the premises, and God the conclusion. Most 
emphatically may this be said in regard to the history of the 
United States. And what a picture does our country present 
to admiring and appreciative minds throughout the entire uni- 
verse! The long-mooted question of whether or not man is 
capable of self-government has been fully tried, and most assur- 
edly has our nation stood the test. The people of our country 
have shown that they are capable of maintaining and retaining 
their individual and collective rights. Efforts from within and 
from without have been made to overthrow the majestic fabric 
of our government, — the forlorn hope of social, political, and 
religious freedom, — but all in vain. The wrath of the billow, 
and the storm of the sky, have surged and threatened ineffectu- 
ally ; and our republic today may be compared to a volcanic 
mountain : internal fires may at times seemingly consume the 
majestic fabric ; assassins may incidentally appear upon the sur- 
face of society, striking down even the rulers chosen by the 
people ; but no foreign power can ever work the nation's over- 
throw. These internal fires and eruptions serve but to throw 
off the lava and smoke of individual wickedness and personal 
monomania, while the mountain will stand through all time. 
Indeed, it may be safely said that, if all the earth were over- 
whelmed with an ocean of political anarchy, the United States 
would stand like another Ararat, upon which the ark of human- 
ity could anchor securely. 

In addition to the fact that the permanency of our institu- 
tions may be said to have been established by the logic of 
events, we have further cause for gratitude, in common with the 



258 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

rest of our fellow-citizens, in the continued and continuing enter- 
prise and industry of our people. The North, the South, the 
East, and the great West are year after year pouring their 
riches into the common granary, whilst the talent and ingenuity 
of all classes are contributing to the general prosperity of the 
nation. The iron arms of enterprise are making their connec- 
tions all over the land, whilst, by more than one route, the 
winged steed, the great promoter of civilization, that feeds upon 
the forest, and drinks from a boiling cauldron, may be heard 
neighing in the valley of the Mississippi, and screaming along 
the shores of the Pacific, well nigh before the breezes of the 
Atlantic have dissipated the bre'ath of his nostrils. In view of 
our great national prosperity, then, upon each and every Thanks- 
giving Day, let mountain top from distant mountain catch the 
flying joy of our people, whilst our valleys and our prairies roll 
the glad hosanna around. 

Whilst I advert, however, to the political, social, and agricult- 
ural blessings of the hour, — so indicative of Divine beneficence, 
and so suggestive of general thanksgiving, — standing as I do, the 
representative in part of this gospel of the skies, this glorious 
religion of Spiritualism, star-eyed as it is, in its researches, 
demonstrative in its facts, and profound in its conclusions, — I 
cannot allow the occasion to pass, and I would not if I could,, 
without adverting especially to this system, in all the force of 
its phenomena and the grandeur of its conceptions, as an addi- 
ional and eminent cause for unbounded gratitude on the part 
of all lovers of spiritual truth. 

The United States, I have said, is the freest country upon the 
globe, ostensibly, touching official interference with individual 
opinion in religious matters. Under the provisions of national 
and State constitutions and laws, no authority can legally prevent 
the people from worshiping God under their own vine and fig- 
tree, and in accordance with the dictates of individual conscien- 
tiousness. Still, it cannot be denied that there appears from 
time to time an under-current of religious bigotry, the outgrowth 



THANKSGIVING DAY. 259 

of sectarian education, which seeks to crush out of existence 
any new conceptions as to God and humanity, and the relations 
claimed to exist between the two. No matter how grandly 
beautiful and glorious such conceptions may be, if they but 
differ in the slightest degree, or be supposed to differ, from the 
traveled grooves of customary religious thought, at once the 
dogs of war are let loose upon the adherents of such ideas in 
the form of personal ridicule and abuse, of social ostracism, of 
public denunciation on the part of both the press and the ortho- 
dox pulpit, and in some localities, alas, even in the form of civil 
and criminal prosecution in the courts of the land. In the expe- 
rience of the Spiritualists, at least, such has been and still is the 
case in an astonishing degree. Only a few weeks since in Phila- 
delphia, — the city of brotherly love, professedly, — the Uni- 
versalists were refused the use of the hall of the Young Men's 
Christian Association for their convention on the ground that 
they were not evangelical Christians ! If bigotry could possibly 
decide upon human destiny, I suppose, my friends, you would 
be denied a seat in the orthodox heaven, on the same grounds, 
and be compelled to take your place with the Spiritualists, who 
have long since been consigned to the other place, the terrible 
hell of theological imagery. But let us find no cause of rancor 
in this fact, since we know that by our opponents it will some 
day be seen that " the atheist's laugh is no reward for Deity 
offended," and that social ostracism will prove in the end but 
poor compensation to those who may seek to wield it in the 
destruction of individual rights. Neither national. State, or 
municipal enactments, or ecclesiastical denunciation can stay the 
progress or even the extravagance of human thought. Hence, as 
Spiritualists, and as liberalists, we can bide the time as to the 
growth and extension of our own immediate opinions, and upon 
all proper occasions unite with our fellow-citizens in thanks- 
giving for the constitutionally religious freedom of our country, 
the freest and happiest upon the globe. 

As individual Spiritualists, then, permit me to remark espe- 



260 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

cially, it seems to me, my friends, that our deepest debt of grati- 
tude is due to Infinite Goodness for the glorious sunlight of 
spiritual truth which, through the conscious ministry of angels, 
is now dawning above the shadowy mountain tops of the super- 
stition and fanaticism of the past ages. This glorious system 
is unfolding a new and brighter gospel to humanity, God's great 
gospel of facts, through which we are beginning to realize that 
inspiration is universal, proportioned to individual receptivity ; 
and this inspiration becomes revelation alone through individual 
soul-consciousness. This soul-satisfying gospel teaches, in brief, 
in contradistinction to the established orthodox theories of 
Christendom, that man exists beyond the grave as a man, as a 
conscious, impersonalized spiritual man, possessed of every 
faculty that characterized his individuality in the earth life, and 
that through law he can return with the blessings and experi- 
ences of the inner and higher life to commune with and comfort 
the loved ones of time. It teaches, as does liberal Universalism, 
likewise, I believe, that man is not by nature the totally de- 
praved and wicked being he is represented to be in the Adamic 
account of the race as given in Genesis ; but that, being an 
emanation from a divine source, he is, and of necessity must be, 
innately good and pure by inheritance, whatever may be the 
incidental and external misdirections of his earthly career ; that 
he has within his spiritual nature all the elements of individual 
harmony ; that he is endowed with all laws necessary to growth 
and happiness, amid both the circumstances of time and the con- 
ditions of eternity ; indeed, that he is a focal concentration of all 
interior harmony, beauty, and use. And, further, this heaven- 
born gospel aims to impress upon the mind that the free and 
spontaneous outgrowth of these inherent powers constitutes the 
harmonious man, the happy man, the good man, independent of 
all canons, creeds, and professions ; but that the perversion, un- 
due restraint, or excess of these inner potencies must inevitably 
produce the inharmonious man, the unhappy man, the man of 
sin and shame, although a thousand prayers, or a thousand ser- 



THANKSGIVING DAY. 261 

mons, constitute a part of his record. Hence, the glorious gos- 
pels I have named enjoin that man should constantly aim at 
individual development, fearlessly, nobly, truly, by outworking 
those diviner faculties of his spiritual or real self into practical 
life. Spiritualism declares that our dear, departed friends of 
earth are God's ministering angels, and that, as his messengers 
of lov€, they are continually seeking to aid us in this process 
of development under the law of universal progress ; and, fur- 
ther, that this law of progress is essentially applicable to man's 
spiritual nature, and as perpetual and enduring as are the cycles 
of eternity ; so that man is to be the recipient of its glorious 
benedictions amid the ceaseless beatitudes of an unending future. 
And, oh, what consolation is to be derived from this beautiful 
gospel of the skies, — although we are so much maligned and 
ridiculed for its acceptance, for which our souls should ever be 
in a thanksgiving condition. How the ineffectual fires of all 
orthodox creeds pale before the glorious sunlight of its majestic 
truths, — ■ the fact of personal identity and individual conscious- 
ness beyond the grave, — the capability of a return to the friends 
in earth, together with the existence of an eternal and uni- 
versally operative law of progress, — all of which are in process 
of demonstration as divine truths, as I have said, through the 
phenomenal phases of this mighty gospel of facts. All idea of 
a permanent hell and an angry God are thus obliterated; the 
torturing grief of earthly partings is wonderfully and happily 
assuaged by the beaming smile of conscious delight, which, 
through unmistakable facts, we know so soon succeeds the 
death-rattle of the worn-out tenement of clay, as our friends 
bid adieu to earthly surroundings ; and a pathway to eventual 
happiness is thus opened to even the most hard-hearted and mis- 
directed of all the members of God's great family. Aye, the 
fear of death, come in what shape it may, is thus destroyed by 
the profound consciousness of God's great love to His children, 
as exemplified in the laws of their being, through the indisputa- 
ble revealments of this heaven-ordained system. The Spirit- 



262 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

ualist, thank God, knows that his friends who are lost to material 
sight are neither dead nor damned ; that the external body may- 
be in the grave, buried in the mine or in the ocean, devoured 
by wild beasts, or consumed by fire, but the elements of the soul, 
— activity and desire, intellect and affection, — the real man, in- 
deed, has been transferred to another and a higher state of being; 
and that his departed friends have only thus gone before in the 
same pathway on which he is traveling, being but a day's jour- 
ney nearer the more exalted home of the soul than himself. 
Under the influence of this soul-satisfying gospel, therefore, 
death is no longer to be considered as the grim monster, the 
cowled skeleton, of angry desolation and eventual destruction ; 
but rather, when approaching through the legitimate pathways 
of organic law, as the smiling messenger of undying love, open- 
ing the lily-crowned door through which the soul enters the 
everlasting lodge of fraternal and immortal felicities. 

And, my friends, it may be well for me to add that this glo- 
rious gospel of truth of which I have been speaking — this sys- 
tem termed Spiritualism — is no ephemeral conception, no newly- 
fledged idea, born of the imagination, and destined to die at the 
first cold touch of science, as has been asserted, or the first keen 
gaze of material philosophy. On the contrary, it has but seemed 
new, from the prevailing materialism of the ages that have 
gone, and a consequent misappreciation in this the supposed cen- 
tury of its birth. But, the truth is that the principles which 
underlie the facts and the philosophy of Spiritualism are as old 
as the eternal hills, and as broad and general in their applica- 
tion as the sun-lighted atmosphere of the universe. Is not, then, 
a system so world-wide in its benefactions, so beautiful in its 
conceptions, so philosophical in its researches, so convincing in 
its facts, so logical in its deductions, so beautifying in its results, 
and so truthful in its precepts touching the well-being of human- 
ity, both here and hereafter, as Spiritualism undoubtedly is, — is 
not such a system, I repeat, worthy of the profoundest thought 
and the deepest love, together with the most unfeigned grati- 



THANKSGIVING DAY. 263 

tude to the Almighty and Infinite Geometer, who rules the uni- 
verse we inhabit with such unerring precision, and such un- 
bounded beneficence ? 

Spiritualism is broader and deeper than either Catholicism or 
Protestantism, for which our souls should be ever truly thank- 
ful. It affirms that " God still inspires man as much as He ever 
did," and that He is as immanent in spirit as in space. It relies 
on no church tradition or scripture as the last grand infallible 
rule. It accepts these things as teachers, if they teach, not 
as masters ; helps, if they help, not authorities. It relies on 
the Divine presence in the soul of man, the eternal word of 
God, which is truth, as it speaks through the faculties He has 
given. It believes God is as near the soul as matter to the 
sense ; believes the canon of revelation has never been closed, 
and that God has never become exhausted. It sees Him in 
nature's perfect works, hears Him in all true scriptures, and 
feels Him in the inspiration of the heart. It calls God Father, 
not king ; Jesus brother, not redeemer ; heaven home ; religion 
nature. It loves and trusts, but fears not. It lays down no 
creed, asks no symbol, reverences exclusively no time or place. 
Its temple is all space ; its shrine the good heart ; its creed all 
truth ; its ritual words of love and utility ; its profession of 
faith a true life ; works without, faith within, love for God and 
man. It bids man do his duty, and take what comes of it, 
■ — grief or gladness. In every desert it opens a fountain of 
living water, gives balm for every wound, a pillow in every tem- 
pest ; tranquility in every distress. It takes all the helps it can 
get ; counts no good word profane, though a heathen spoke it ; 
and no lie sacred, though a prophet may have uttered it. Its 
redeemer is within, its salvation within, its heaven and its oracle 
of God within ; it makes each man his own priest, but accepts 
gladly him that speaks a holy word. Its prayer in words, in 
works, in thought, and in feeling is : '•''Thy will he done.^' 

In conclusion, endowed with such a consolatory religion as 
this, — with such a glorious philosophy, — surely, the Spiritual- 



264 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

ists, of all people in the world, should be possessed of grateful 
and cheerful hearts, and should ever cordially welcome the 
return of each Thanksgiving Day, as the years roll on. Indeed, 
blessed as we are in time, and buoyed up as we may be with the 
glorious possibilities of the future, our entire lives should be but 
one long Thanksgiving Day, — one long bright day of gratitude 
and joy, — more and more joyous as we continue to drink in the 
sweet assurances of our angel friends. 



LECTURE XV. 



DO "WE EVER FORGET: 



An able writer of the present day has well said that, in regard 
to spiritual and eschatological conceptions, Christendom is to a 
very great extent the slave of false knowledge. The mind is 
more or less crowded with theological ideas that have but slight 
foundation in truth. Humanity has learned to lean on these 
ideas, and hence the sum of experience is but little more than a 
dizzy dream of the conduct of past generations, generations that 
acted in almost complete ignorance of their natures. A series of 
ecclesiastical systems have mystified existence, whilst the current 
of original thought touching the soul and its possible or probable 
destiny is well nigh stagnant. Men of the present generation 
believe in what their fathers credited ; tlieir fathers credited what 
they were taught to believe by their predecessors, and the spirit 
of inquiry is too often checked by a mistaken reverence for the 
utterances of antiquity. Examine the pages of the material 
metaphysician, or study the dogmas of scholastic theology, and 
in both you find systems that deal in words, not facts, arbitrary 
assertions at war with reason, imaginary principles leading to 
the adoption of theories that more or less contradict the common 
sense of mankind. 

But when moral and scientific truths are practically enforced 
by a system of independent thought so pre-eminently engendered 
by a study of the phenomena and philosophy of Spiritualism, 
the glorious system of which I am in part the advocate upon the 

(265) 



266 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

present occasion ; when men, led by its teachings, search into 
their own natures, and recognize that all true growth must be 
from within, independent of all external appliances ; and when, 
in the formation of individual character, they learn from the 
same source to depend upon exertions made through their own 
intellectual and emotional nature, rather than through reliance 
upon established creeds and prescribed formula, then, indeed, 
all becomes light and order; the certain succeeds the doubtful, 
the practical the impossible, and mind revels in that high and 
ennobling satisfaction that is derivable from the investigation of 
nature and the discovery of truth. For Spiritualism teaches all 
that is written in the moral constitution and spiritual needs of 
humanity, and he or she who would triumph amid the higher 
joys of the present, or the glorious beatitudes of the future, 
must look to the cultivation of their own spiritual powers, since 
all true happiness can be reached either here or hereafter alone 
through the shekinah of the individual soul. 

But, to the immediate theme of my discourse. Do we ever 
forget ? The distinguished Agassiz has said : " If you would 
teach a child geography, you should take him out among the 
hills, and let the earth become his instructor ; if you would teach 
him of tigers or turtles, show him tiger or turtle." It is some- 
what so in the study of the vast possibilities of humanity. If 
we would learn of man's powers of memory, as well as all his 
capabilities of mental activity in the realms which Spiritualism 
demonstrates are to succeed this ; if we would form a just appre- 
ciation of his immortal capabilities, we must examine him criti- 
cally, as we find him here. We must analyze him as a physical , 
an intellectual, and a spiritual being, which, we are assured, he 
is ; we must find out the peculiarities and powers of each depart- 
ment of his organization ; determine the qualities and capacities 
of each, their adaptability or non-adaptability to the necessities 
of time, together with the indications which either one of these 
divisions of his nature may furnish of the probability of contin- 
ued activity when time shall be no more. Thus, reasoning by 



DO WE EVEE FORGET? 267 

analogy, we shall be able to establish a legitimate postulate, at 
least, touchiug the interrogatory involved in my text. Let us 
attempt to do this. 

And, first, permit me to refer to the physical departm.ent of 
man's being. It is an established fact of science that every well- 
developed human organism contains about twenty-eight pounds 
of blood, which, by the most perfect hydraulic process, is con- 
veyed from the heart to the extremities at the rate of about three 
thousand gallons per diem, whilst not less than one hundred 
thousand cubic feet of atmospheric air, passing through six 
hundred millions of air cells in the lungs, are required for the 
purposes of existence every year that we live in our material 
bodies. Science tells us further that every square inch of the 
human body sustains a column of air forty-five miles high, which, 
it has been ascertained, weighs about fourteen pounds ; so that 
it is estimated that every ordinarily-sized human body supports 
the astounding weight of about thirty thousand pounds. This 
immense pressure from without, science tells us, is counterbal- 
anced by what is termed the electro-vital power within, the body 
being thus rendered insensible to the pressure. So that, with 
an electric engine of not less than one-horse power, together 
with a vast chemical laboratory all the while in operation within 
the system, with such admirable precision has nature done her 
work that man is not disturbed thereby, unless the machinery, 
from some cause or other, gets out of order. Indeed, so quietly 
and harmoniously work the wonderful forces within the human 
system that the power, as you may perceive, which drives to the 
generous bosom of the mother the food for her offspring, at the 
rate of fifteen thousand hogsheads per annum, does not awaken 
the little slumberer, although the rushing tide is just beneath its 
ear. 

No less wonderful is the muscular system of the human frame. 
The muscles, although constituted similarly as regards material, 
are divided into two classes, the voluntary and the involuntary. 
The voluntary lie between the bony frame and the integuments 



268 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

of the body ; the involuntary exist within the cavities, and com- 
pose a part of the circulatory and the digestive systems. The 
former are subject to the conscious action of the will, the latter 
are supposed to act independent of the will. The muscles are 
over five hundred in number. 

The alimentary canal is about two feet in length, whilst the 
mesentery glands, which lie along the line of the intestines, take 
up the different particles of food which we consume, and convey 
them to appropriate departments of the system, in obedience to 
the same great law, operating under different conditions, that 
holds the mighty worlds which compose the body of the majestic 
universe we inhabit each within its own appropriate orbit. 

Wonderful, likewise, indeed, most wonderful, is the nervous 
system as a part of the human mechanism of which I am speak- 
ing, an intricate telegraphic process, conveying to every portion 
of the body the vital sensibilities necessary to the pleasures and 
uses of existence. After the discourse on Sunday morning last, 
a friend said to me, while shaking hands : " I am glad to meet you, 
although, of course, I cannot see you." This was true. When 
we see a man in his flesh and blood, we see but his outer robes. 
If his nervous system alone were delicately separated from out 
his body, it would have the precise form thereof ; for the nerves 
fill not only each tissue of the body, but extend even to the 
enamel of the teeth, the fibers of the hair, and the shaping of the 
eye. There is no part of the human frame that is not penetrated 
and infiltrated by these invisible ramifications. And the recog- 
nition of this fact, T may remark, in passing, is one great step 
toward the realization of the existence of a spiritual body. A 
little further refinement only is needed to bring the mind to a 
conception of the reality of the spiritual body, with still the 
precise form of the outer man, which conception Spiritualism 
has demonstrated to be a great fact in nature. 

But the greatest wonder of the beautiful piece of mechanism 
which is termed the human body is undoubtedly to be found in 
the refined cap sheaf of this material organism, the mysterious 



DO WE EVER FORGET? 269 

center of the nervous system just adverted to, the human brain. 
This amazing apex of our animal organism, with its complicated 
and varied compartments, its convolutions, its cells, its watery 
and marrowy substances, its thin partitions and regular subdi- 
visions, — indeed, its entire shape and texture, — all existing and 
operating harmoniously, in accordance with the laws of adapt- 
ation and use, certainly constitute this organ as a channel for 
the manifestation of powers so transcendent, and of functions so 
delicate and complicated, that it is not to be wondered at that 
even in Christendom it has been termed the " dome of thought." 
But, with all its delicacy and wonderfulness of construction, 
Spiritualism gives to the brain no such distinctive appellation, 
that is, in the sense of being the originator of thought. It is to 
be esteemed rather as a machine, in the nature of a galvanic 
battery, the different compartments thereof constituting the fur- 
niture of an electro-mental apparatus designed for the genera- 
tion of a refined and subtle agent, which serves the purpose of 
transmitting, not originating, that thought and feeling which, 
in the highest sense, are the characteristic qualities of a sensi- 
tive and reflective being. Material science tells us that the 
action of the voluntary muscles to which I have referred is 
dependent upon currents transmitted through the agency of the 
nerves, from the nerve center, the brain. This is true, likewise, 
of what are termed the involuntary muscles, also adverted to, 
although the fact may not be impressed upon the outer con- 
sciousness. Material science tells us, also, that in all cases of 
sensation the impression is conveyed from the extremities to 
the brain by means of the same voltaic current along the line 
of the nerves. But material science does not tell us the nature, 
in full, of this current, nor does she solve the mystery of this 
unseen but intelligent power which gives to the animal brain its 
seeming impressibility and projecting power. Spiritualism, 
properly understood, assumes to do this. 

Material metaphysicians have affirmed, in this connection, that 
the mind, meaning the intelligent principle, is but a function of 



270 TJKAl^SWERABLE LOGIC. 

tlie animal brain, and orthodox theology has done nothing prac- 
tically to contradict this atheistic assumption. Let us consider 
for a moment the sad and absurd sequences of such a proposi- 
tion, if true. Missionaries, for instance, have been devoured by 
cannibals, martyrs have been burned at the stake in other days. 
That these missionaries and martyrs have been annihilated 
altogether, in accordance with the belief of the atheist, is to my 
apprehension no more irrational and inconceivable than the 
idea of the theologian who is inculcating the doctrine of a ma- 
terial resurrection. That conscious identity has been forever 
destroyed by the occurrence of what is termed death is, indeed, 
more acceptable to many than the thought that these victims 
have been without minds as well as bodies for these many years, 
awaiting the revival of their individuality in a far distant future, 
alone through the restoration of their earthly bodies, which have 
not only long since gone through the process of disintegration, 
but likewise through assimilation in possibly a thousand different 
other forms incidental to material growth and decay. Either 
position is wholly untenable. Is it not, therefore, far more 
rational, as well as consonant with the aspirations of the human 
soul, to believe, as Spiritualism teaches, and likewise in accord- 
ance with the known laws of matter, that, after what is called 
the death of the body, the fluid portions thereof ascend in the 
form of vapor, descending again through the operations of 
natural law in the dew drop and the rain, and that the more 
solid portions of the body, seeking their kindred atoms, like- 
wise, are continuously passing and repassing amid the various 
foruis of life that make up the different kingdoms constituting 
the majestic macrocosm of the universe ? But the intelligent 
principle, which gave vital activitj'- and advancing thought to 
the material body prior to its phenomenal prostration in the 
silence of death, possessing a conscious spiritual individuality 
peculiarly its own, seeks unerringly a congenial sphere in the 
glory-world of the beautiful hereafter, where its diviner possi- 
bilities will be brought into healthier and happier exercise, pro- 



DO WE EVER FORGET? 271 

portioned to effort and desire, throughout the unending cycles 
of eternity. 

Physicians tell us that, in the disease called hydrocephalus, 
the human brain will sometimes become distended from within 
toward the circumference, giving it the appearance of a mere 
sack, and yet the faculties remain normal. The upper portion 
of the brain has likewise been frequently torn away, even sev- 
ering the optic and olfactory nerves, and yet the faculties of 
thought and memory remained intact until inflammation ensued. 
Some years since an iron bar was driven through the center of 
the brain of a railroad operator at Cavendish, Vermont, forcing 
before it a column of the brain of the dimensions of the front 
end of the bar, mutilating the delicate structure within, and 
rending arterial twigs by well nigh the dozen, and yet the man 
recovered, and his faculties remained intact. Must there not, 
then, be some principle of intelligence within this material ma- 
chine which we have mistakenly called the man himself, some 
thinking faculty, not visible to the external sight, and that is 
not affected by the casualties and incidents to which the outer 
man is subjected ? 

Observation in the realm of matter teaches us unmistakably 
that everywhere and under all conditions there is a universal 
law of change in operation continuously. Some infinite power 
seems evidently in exercise unceasingly, upon and through nature, 
through and by this great law of mutation new forms and rela- 
tions being thereby continually brought into being along the 
variable pathway of the wheels of time. Man's physical body 
and its functions form no exception in the operations of this 
law. Every portion of the material organism is constantly 
undergoing change, not merely every seven years, as formerly 
supposed, but momentarily. At every half revolution of the 
blood, oxygen and carbonic acid gas are alternately imbibed 
and dislodged through the lungs, and at the capillaries of the 
system. There is an alternate liquefaction and solidification 
constantlv t^oinof on in man's material encasement, bone, mus- 



272 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

cle, .brain, and nerve matter becoming blood ; and blood, in 
turn becoming bone, muscle, and brain. Besides, as affirmed 
by physiology, each portion of the organism is constantly throw- 
ing off particles of dead matter, and taking on new ones, in obe- 
dience to the organic law of demand and supply. Thus, the 
physical body is being continually torn to pieces and rebuilt, 
particle by particle, the ingredients of brain matter forming no 
exception amid the changing portions of this wonderful machine. 
Indeed, in these particulars the human body may be compared 
to the fabled web of the ancient Penelope, which she was con- 
stantly weaving and unweaving whilst awaiting the return of 
her absent lord. What she had woven in the day was unwoven 
at night, that she might continue to repulse the importunities 
of her suitors, to whom she had promised compliance upon the 
completion of the web. Even so with the material organism ; 
it is being continually woven and unwoven, through the law of 
its being, while the grim suitors disease and death are at hand, 
waiting for their prize. At length the Ulysses of immortality 
arrives, and the contest ends. 

These evidences of perpetual change in the various portions 
of the physical body certainly indicate the fact that the animal 
brain does not and cannot possess the retentive faculty, even in 
this life, much less when the hand of decomposition and decay 
has set the seal of silence upon all its various functions. The 
brain in this life, it is true, seemingly telegraphs to the extremi- 
ties, and the extremities seemingly communicate with the brain, 
by means of what science terms the voltaic current coursing 
along the nerves ; but neither the brain nor the nerves, in and 
of themselves, possess vitality or the power of thought. They 
are. Spiritualism contends, and indeed demonstrates, but tem- 
porary instruments through which some intelligent principle is 
acting, the brain being superior to the hand or foot only in the 
ratio of its superior functional development. 

This position, however, as I have said, is opposed directly by 
the materialist, and indirectly by the orthodox theology of the 



DO WE EVER FORGET? 273 

day. The materialist tells us that thought aud memory are 
functions of the animal brain, and that man is nothing more nor 
less than an intelligent representative of the history of matter, 
as it exists all around us. As the acorn produces the oak, and 
the oak, in turn, produces the acorn ; as the fowl produces the 
egg, and the egg, in turn, produces the fowl ; so man, he affirms, 
being produced alone by matter, can alone, in turn, produce 
matter. But this is certainly a most superficial and unwarrant- 
able assumption, as all the phenomenal revealments of man and 
his relations clearly illustrate ; and yet, I repeat, that theology, 
in its theoretical advocacy of the doctrine of a material resur- 
rection, has done but little to successfully eradicate so fearful and 
materialistic as well as erroneous conception touching the human 
soul and its destiny. 

Under the teachings of either of these schools of thought, of 
either theology or atheism, who shall approximate a satisfactory 
solution of that mysterious and interesting phenomenon, a human 
corpse ? Why does the inert mass lie so still ? Examine the 
brain, the eye, and all the functional organs of the system, and 
you will find that they are as perfect in construction immedi- 
ately after as immediately before what is called death has oc- 
curred. Why, then, have these organs ceased the performance 
of their relative duties ? Why does not the body throw aside 
the grave-stone, and resume its conscious individuality ? What 
has become of its loves, its hates, its hopes, its disappointments, 
and its desires ? If thought and memory are properties of the 
physical, why is the brain so motionless, so pulseless ? If all the 
physical organs are still intact, why are the individual idiosyn- 
crasies — but a short time since so marked — now indistinguish- 
able ? Why are the faculties which but recently rendered that 
body so much the object of love or veneration now so dormant ? 
What has become of that loving or intellectual light that shone 
out from beneath the eyelid, now so motionless? What has 
become of those expressive features, a smile from which could 
thrill our very being with ecstasy, or frown us into reverence or 



274 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

hate ? The features are still there, but, oh, how expressionless, 
— and why ? 

. To these interrogatories the atheist practically replies : all 
these emotional sensibilities and capacities of thought and mem- 
ory to which you have adverted, as recently characteristic of 
the body now before us, were merely the result of the material 
organization ; belonging to the physical, with the vitality of the 
physical they have necessarily ceased to be. And with these, 
likewise, all man's longing hopes and glowing aspirations, all 
his unaccomplished desires for progressive development, and for 
personal security and happiness, have been blotted out in the 
fate of both mind and matter. 

This answer of the atheist, horrible as it is to the aspiring 
part of our natures, has the advantage of definiteness, at least, 
over any general response which may be given by the schools 
of ecclesiasticism, from the fact that each particular sect of theo- 
logical faith has some peculiar shade of belief essentially its 
own. The general idea of their text-books, however, in this 
connection is that of a material resurrection. This doctrine 
involves, and has authoritatively received the following inter- 
pretation, which is held in contradistinction to the views of the 
materialist just presented: after the phenomenon of death has 
taken place, the body is, of course, disposed of ; and the spirit, 
which seems to be esteemed as a sort of indefinite essence, 
wholly incomprehensible to the finite mind, remains in an uncon- 
scious state in some unknown locality until a general resurrec- 
tion, which, it is stated, will take place at that indefinite period 
termed " the end of the world." When this general resurrec- 
tion occurs, and not before, if I understand the doctrine, with a 
view to the restoration of conscious individuality, lost in most 
cases for many centuries, the indefinite essence termed a spirit 
is to re-inhabit its former body, accept the decrees of a "general 
judgment," and, in a large majority of cases, be consigned to 
irremediable woe in an eternal hell. And I do not intention- 
ally misstate this horrible creed of orthodox theology. 



DO "WE EVEE FOEGET? 275 

Sad, indeed, the fate of the haman family if either of these 
responses to the interrogatories which I have propounded be 
true, whilst either of them would render creation a horrible 
blasphemy and an incomprehensible failure. 

Rejecting the views of both schools of thought just named, in 
regard to the inquiries suggested on viewing the corpse of a 
once sentient being, what has Spiritualism to present in lieu 
thereof? What has Spiritualism to offer touching the perpe- 
tuity of thought, of feeling, and of memory touching an unin- 
terrupted continuance of our conscious individuality after the 
material body lies cold and still in death ? Let us see. 

It is evident, of course, that some principle of vitality, and of 
intelligence, likewise, must have operated in and through the 
organic structure now so dormant. Inert matter, we are well 
aware, is incapable of emotion, of activity, or of thought ; yet, 
through gross matter in the organized form now before our 
mind's eye, so senseless and motionless, we know but recently 
was expressed affection, memory, and will, together with all the 
qualities attributable to an intelligent individuality. To what 
principle in nature can we assign these powers of ratiocination ? 
Not to organized matter, for organized matter lies before us 
essentially dumb. Nor can we attribute such active capacities 
to abstract principles or disintegrated essences. Such intel- 
lectual and emotional powers as pre-eminently distinguish the ' 
human from all other individualities in the finite realm of beinsf 
can alone be attributable to organized intelligence, not organ- 
ized matter, as the atheist contends, and theology implies, but 
a more subtile and exalted feature in the majestic universe, of 
which we are a part, of which matter, organized or otherwise, 
is but the passive channel of outward manifestation. What, 
then, is that power, but now so active in and through the mate- 
rial body, the departure of which has left that body so expres- 
sionless and dead? This great question, certainly the most 
important inquiry of all the centuries. Spiritualism assumes to 
answer, and to answer demonstratively. By a series of hitherto 



276 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

unappreciable phenomena, together with an elevated and ele- 
vating system of philosophy based thereon, touching the human 
soul and its immortal destinies, Spiritualism is rapidly changing 
the entire tendency of eschatological conceptions in Christen- 
dom, while it is undoubtedly coloring in a greater or less degree 
the whole current of general literature, and that, too, despite 
the most irrational and unwarrantable opposition. By an appeal 
to the interior consciousness and the external senses at one and 
the same time, the justifiable demand on the part of the general 
mind for tangible evidence touching the nature and office of the 
intelligent principle in man, together with a possible or proba- 
ble future for the race, has been fully and satisfactorily met ; 
and this, too, in a manner illustrative of the truth of the ancient 
record, wherein it is declared that "God chose the foolish things 
of the world that He might put to shame them that are wise." 
The despised and much-ridiculed phenomena of Spiritualism — 
the raps, tipping, trance, personating, writing, materializing, 
clairaudient and clairvoyant manifestations, together with the 
sadly-misunderstood dark circles — have contributed to bring 
about the important changes referred to, and constitute the fun- 
damental basis upon which is founded that glorious system of 
ethical philosophy and devotional thought which we term the 
religion of Spiritualism, and which we recognize as being in 
harmonious accord with all the divine revelations of nature, and 
all the higher aspirations of the human soul. These phenomena 
have established, beyond the possibility of successful contradic- 
tion, the great fact that the intelligent principle of which we 
have been speaking, the departure of which from the body con- 
signs it to irremediable decomposition and decay, is a conscious 
entity, an individualized spiritual intelligence, — in other words, 
is the man himself, whilst the physical body, with its complex 
machinery, of which I have spoken, is but a temporary agent, a 
material covering, adapted to the uses and pleasures of an earthly 
existence alone. Instead of the man being the physical form 
which we see, endowed with a spirit, it is precisely the reverse. 



DO WE EVER FOEGET? 277 

Man is a spirit possessed of a material form, designed for the 
individualizing and educational processes incidental to time. 
Hence, then, it is the object of our love and veneration that has 
departed from the body through the process termed death, leav- 
ing the corpse but the lifeless lump of clay to which I have re- 
ferred. And the phenomena of Spiritualism have clearly demon- 
strated that these spiritual entities, our departing friends, on 
leaving the •' muddy vesture of decay," which we call the body, 
take with them, necessarily, all the emotional and intellectual 
properties which constituted their individuality here, — their 
loves and hates, their memories, their capacities of thought and 
will," — indeed all the mental and affectional capabilities and 
desires which constituted personal character here, intensified 
rather than diminished by their liberation from immediate con- 
tact with the physical body as a channel of communication and 
expression. In fine, the phenomena of Spiritualism unmistak- 
ably demonstrate the perpetuity of individual consciousness, 
individual memory, and individual affection beyond the grave, 
and, inferentially, their continuance forever, — whilst, at the 
same time, these phenomena are accessible to all, thank God, — 
the loftiest and the lowliest of earth's children, the veriest sin- 
ner in human estimation as well as the most exalted saint. 

But, it may be readily suggested, if it be true that thought, 
memory, and affection are the properties of an immortal prin- 
ciple within the physical body, possessing a conscious individu- 
ality of its own, what, then, is the office of the animal brain ? 
If the physical brain, in and of itself, possesses neither of these 
potencies of intelligence, what are its functions, and what is its 
office in the human machine, of which it constitutes the apex ? 
Reasoning from legitimate premises, the conclusion is warrant- 
able that the material brain is a machine, so to speak, in the 
nature of a galvanic battery, as previously stated ; that its various 
functional arrangements constitute the furniture of an electrical, 
or rather an electro-mental, apparatus, designed to generate a 
current somewhat akin to galvanism ; which sustains a contin- 



278 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

uous connection between the brain and every other portion of 
the physical frame ; and which is known to material science, as 
I have said, under the name of voltaic. The brain, you are 
aware, is the center of the nervous system, and, hence, the nerves 
constitute the channels by means of which this fluid reaches 
every other portion of the body, serving as a means of communi- 
cation for the purposes of sensation and motion, under the in- 
telligent direction of that more positive principle of which I have 
spoken, the departure of which from the body produces the 
phenomena of inertia termed death. This current is as ethereal 
as the air we breathe, and, from the nature of its production, is 
susceptible of impressions from both its material and spiritual 
relations. This emanation from the brain under the impulsion 
of the intelligent principle, or soul, may be denominated the 
external mind, serving as the intermediate agent of the soul, or 
the man himself, in his communion with the material body, and 
through that with the outer world. This external mind, or 
essence, like unto the physical brain and body, possesses no vitality 
in and of itself. All vitality is in soul or spirit. Through this 
intermediate agent, the individualized spirit is enabled partially, 
and only partially, to manifest outwardly his or herself truly, 
either emotionally or intellectually ; for the external manifesta- 
tion, thus far in the history of the race, is not always a true 
indication of the inner being. The outward act necessarily com- 
ports with the conditions of the channel through which it is 
given. As the physical body is undoubtedly the legitimate result 
of evolution from the kingdoms in nature below man, partaking 
more or less of the organizational proclivities of the next lowest 
department in the scale of being, and as ante-natal and educa- 
tional surroundings are still deficient in moral and social adjust- 
ment, the spiritual nature of man is, as yet, in a great measure 
subjected to less elevated influences and tendencies ; hence, man 
is thus far in the history of the race in a transitional condition, 
and human society but a sad and lamentable masquerade. The 
human spirit, therefore, — the real man, — cannot fully express 



DO WE EVER FORGET ? 279 

his true nature, or manifest truly his innate capacities of thought, 
of feeling, and of memory. These organic experiences, how- 
ever, we are taught are legitimate results of the law of univer- 
sal progress, and tend to the educational individualization of the 
soul, preparatory to broader activities and higher uses in the 
conditions of existence that are to succeed this. 

Again, we are enabled to perceive the inability of the spirit- 
ual man to properly express himself outwardly through the 
physical body, when impaired in any manner by the incidents 
of time. In old age, for instance, when man has reached what 
is termed his second childhood, — as you may have observed, — 
often important intermediate events are seemingly forgotten, 
whilst the incidents of childhood are frequently recalled with 
peculiar vividness. This is from the fact that time or disease 
may have weakened the generative powers of the physical brain ; 
and its issue, the external mind, is incapable of receiving and 
conveying impressions corresponding to the vigor of earlier and 
healthier manhood. So, likewise, with the monomaniac, the 
lunatic, indeed, with physical derangement of every kind ; con- 
ditions having in some manner deleteriously affected the exter- 
nal mind and body, the outward manifestation of the interior 
intelligence necessarily corresponds with the defect of the chan- 
nel through which it passes. But, these facts by no means 
warrant the assumption, or the fear indulged in by some, that 
what is called the "thinking principle in man" waxes old, 
sickens, and dies. On the contrary, the intelligent principle, the 
real man, amid all these experiences and changes, remains 
essentially himself ; and when the pale angel of divine benefi- 
cence calls him hence, he takes with him unimpaired all the 
wonderful faculties that constituted his individuality here, — his 
individual consciousness, his individual affection, and his perpet- 
uated memory. These declarations are not the result of chi- 
merical speculation, or groundless hope. Tens of thousands of 
disinthralled spirits, once inhabiting human bodies, as you and 
I now do, continually bear testimony to these facts, through the 



280 UNANSWEEABLE LOGIC. 

sadly misunderstood and grossly misrepresented phenomena of 
Spiritualism. Hence, in response to the interrogatory presented 
in my text, Spiritualism, in the melodious tones of undying 
love, proclaims unmistakably man never forgets. 

In further illustration of the idea I am attempting to enforce, 
I may refer my classical hearers to the curious manuscripts of 
the ancients, called palimpsests. Parchment was precious ma- 
terial before the invention of paper ; and, in consequence, the 
writers of the middle ages were compelled to be very econom- 
ical in its use. They would take, for instance, a scroll contain- 
ing a portion of one of Cicero's orations, and, erasing (seemingly) 
the original words, would supply their place, we will say, with an 
extract from St. Augustine's Commentary on the Psalms. After- 
wards, the same scroll, falling into other hands, by the same proc- 
ess of erasure, the production of the great bishop would disappear, 
giving place, perhaps, to some gay romance. Modern chemis- 
try has discovered a method by which all that has been written 
upon this parchment since it was first used can be extracted, so 
to speak, leaving behind only the eloquent original of the Roman 
orator. Thus showing that the Ciceronian gem was there all 
the while, though seemingly destroyed. 

The human soul may be termed a palimpsest, on an immortal 
and, of course, more immense scale. The parchment can carry, 
at most, less than a half dozen different scrolls ; but the immor- 
tal soul can carry untold millions of them. There is, indeed, no 
such a thing as forgetting. We say at times we forget, and we 
believe we forget ; but to the real man, the undying soul, for- 
getfulness is a fiction, and oblivion a delusion. 

And, thus, it will be perceived that Spiritualism, in establish- 
ing the perpetuity of memory beyond the grave, is logically de- 
termining, likewise, the individual responsibility of the race for 
the deeds of time, not by arbitrary decrees or preordained judg- 
ments, but through the legitimate outworkings of the law of 
cause and effect,— the pivotal law, essentially, of the divine 
economy. The diamond-pointed pen of organic law, Spiritual- 



DO WE EVER FOEGET? 281 

ism declares, is continually and indelibly inscribing upon the 
tablet of the soul the legitimate effects of our every thought, 
word, and act, whether good or evil ; so that when the body 
celestial shall have been freed from the body terrestrial, the col- 
lective experiences of the whole past existence will be in full 
and unescapable recognition. And this, indeed, will be the 
judgment book, — in the mysterious chirography of which the 
deeds of time will be found to have been unerringly recorded ; 
and under this law of righteous retribution man will find him- 
self his own judge, juror, convict, and executioner. 

But the world to come, we are assured by our beloved ones 
who have gone before, is a realm of compensation as well as of 
retribution. The Mahometans are taught that the true believer, 
in his passage to paradise, will be compelled to walk with bare 
feet over a bridge of red-hot iron. They are also taught never 
to step upon, or otherwise permit the destruction of, any piece 
of paper in this world, lest the name of God or some holy thing 
may have been written upon it ; and that, when called to pass 
over the bridge alluded to, all the pieces of paper which they 
may have thus preserved during earth life will arrange them- 
selves between their feet and the fiery pathway, that they may 
be thereby saved from pain or injury. 

In conclusion, and as applicable to the purport of my dis- 
course, may we not recognize an interior and consolatory defini- 
tion of this fanciful conception of the Moslems, since, even in 
this life, the effects of conscientious and benevolent actions 
often assuage the pain of subsequent afl9.ictions ; whilst, in the 
worlds that are to come (we are assured by our beloved and 
miscalled dead friends), we shall find that the memory of good 
deeds will materially lessen the burden of our misdirections ; 
whilst the joys of the soul shall grow brighter, and still brighter, 
as such reminiscences flash out from the immortal record of the 
past, amid the beatific realities of angel and archangel glory. 



LECTURE XVI. 

CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE. 

THEIR PLAUSIBILITY AND POSSIBILITY DEDUCED FROM SCIENTIFIC DATA. 

" Spiritualism," says one of its ablest advocates,* " is a sci- 
ence by authority of self-evident truth, observed fact, and inev- 
itable deduction, having within itself all the elements upon the 
possession of which any science can found a claim. Moreover, 
1 esteem Spiritualism as the all-comprehensive science of the 
sciences, without which all others are incomplete. Astronomy, 
for instance, reveals to us the worlds in space, determines their 
periods, fixes their locality, and weighs them as in a balance, 
but Spiritualism reveals to us why these worlds are. Indeed, 
it is the only science that can give the last analysis to the uni- 
versal why<> and translate into human consciousness the real 
significance of all that is. The beautiful truths of Spiritualism, 
likewise, are self-commendatory ; they are addressed to a univer- 
sal question. Man loves to live. Spiritualism proclaims, with 
.he trump of an angel, thou shalt not die. In the life of the 
animal, man may forget it ; in the life of tradition and church, 
imposed creeds and rituals, he may hate it ; in the life of fashion 
and official position, he may assume to despise and ridicule it ; 
but in the life of the spirit, he is a Spiritualist. He who claims 
to have faith in God and faith in heaven, and hates Spiritualism, 
is a juggler who cheats himself with the adroitness of his own 
trick. He who professes to love science, and shuts his eyes to 
the facts of Spiritualism, is false to the name he bears. He is 

Dr. R. T. Hallock. (282) 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIR AUDIENCE. 283 

a traitor to science, though the whole alphabet were put under 
contribution for abbreviations wherewith to express the titles 
and number of his honorary degrees ; and the doctor of divinity 
who denounces the fundamental truths of Spiritualism is a quack 
in theology, though he occupy the divinity chair in the highest 
institution in the land." 

Before entering upon the discussion of the theme I have 
chosen as the basis of my remarks this evening, permit me to 
invite your courteous and undivided attention to what I shall 
offer, suggesting that such attention will be advisable in order 
that through a correct recognition of my premises and the con- 
tinuous line of my argument you may be the better enabled to 
appreciate the conclusions at which I seek to arrive, conclusions 
which embrace some of the fundamental tenets of the glorious 
gospel of Spiritualism. 

Among the important propositions which we believe to have 
been established beyond successful dispute by the spiritual mani- 
festations of the present day, with their attendant psychological 
phenomena, are the following: — 

1st. That human beings, after what is called death has taken 
place, sensibly manifest their presence under suitable conditions, 
and communicate intelligibly with those still remaining in the 
earth life. 

2nd. That the spirit world is ever present, around, and within 
us, so that we are or may be constantly associated with, influ- 
enced by, and under the cognizance of invisible beings once 
dwellers in the flesh, like ourselves, — in fact, that we are now 
in the spirit world, as really as we ever shall be, only that our 
senses are ordinarily unopened to its realities. 

3rd. That human beings are endowed with senses adapted to 
perceiving the beings and objects of the spirit world, and like- 
wise to hearing the voices from that world; which senses, though 
closed through the earth life in most persons, are at times opened 
in some, those in whom they are opened being termed clairvoy- 
ants and clairaudients. 



284 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

But, the very fanaticism of incredulity prevails to a consid- 
erable extent in this world of ours in regard to these propositions 
of the spiritual school. The skeptical minds of the day as to 
the progress of the race in spiritual knowledge, that class of 
dogmatists who fain 

" Would make their minds the meausuring rods of truth," 

deny the existence of any such spiritual faculties as those we 
have claimed for humanity, or at best assert man's inability to 
bring any such faculties into practical use during his earthly 
existence, and, without investigation, unqualifiedly denounce and 
seek to persecute the Spiritualists for thus asserting the possible 
predominance of the spiritual senses of the race over and above 
the conditions of time. Nevertheless, Spiritualism is moving 
irresistibly onward toward the accomplishment of an infinite 
purpose, as we believe ; whilst many are already beginning to 
realize, as the ministers of interior life so forcibly declare, that 

" Through harmony in body, heart, and brain, 
Through harmony of wisdom, love, and use, 
Man blooms in every faculty of soul. 
And every organ of the cultured mind; 
And consciousness itself becomes inspired 
As man reflects the streaming thoughts that shine 
Through spirit atmospheres upon the world." 

Let us examine somewhat in detail the validity of the declara- 
tions of the spiritual school which I have just presented. 

It will be recollected, perhaps, that during the last half of the 
eighteenth century Galvani, a celebrated anatomist and physi- 
ologist, and the distinguished Italian philosopher, Volta, made 
very many experiments as to the influence of galvanic electricity 
on the nerves and muscles of certain animals. Galvani, you 
are aware, discovered the existence of this agent, and Volta 
invented an instrument for generating and directing it to scien- 
tific and other practical purposes. Hence, the agent itself is 
known as galvanism ; and the instruments as voltaic apparatus. 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAmAUDIENCE. 285 

A controversy, we are told, existed for some time between 
Volta and Galvani, as to the nature and origin of this current. 
The former contended that it could only be generated by a hetero- 
geneous combination of metallic substances. The latter asserted, 
and claimed to have demonstrated, its existence in the animal, 
without the aid of outside apparatus, and as the probable agent 
of all vital phenomena. Still further experiments on the part 
of science demonstrated the existence of electro-magnetic and 
voltaic currents not only in inferior animals but in the living 
man also, — existing as agents in the production of all action, 
whether muscular, sensational, or vital. Still further and more 
general investigation demonstrated the correctness of the posi- 
tion of Galvani as to the existence of this vital motive power in 
the system, — much attention was attracted, — and important 
discoveries followed. Among the most significant results of 
this discovery, Mesmer, a member of the medical faculty of 
Vienna, succeeded in 1774, in reducing the operations of what is 
termed animal magnetism to something like a scientific formula; 
and, in his extensive practice as a j^hysician, claimed to have 
demonstrated it to be of great value as an auxiliary of medicine. 
True, the Royal Medical Academy of Paris appointed a commit- 
tee to investigate the assumptions of Vienna's gifted student, 
which committee reported unfavorably. These learned scientists, 
because they could neither see, feel, taste, smell, measure, nor 
weigh the subtle fluid which Mesmer declared to have an exist- 
ence, and as partially subject, at least, to the human will, re- 
ported there was no such thing as animal magnetism. The 
members of this committee were not unlike certain investigators 
of the dawning spiritual truths of the present day, who, strangely 
enough, presume to denounce all assumptions of the spiritual 
school which, through the agency of the most superficial exam- 
ination, their judgments have been unable to fathom, — thus 
reminding one of the imperious and bigoted old gentleman of 
whom Lord Byron sings, who, besides seeing 



286 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

"With his own eyes the moou was round, 
Was also certain that this world was square ; 
Because, he 'd traveled fifty miles, and found 
No proof that it was circular anywhere." 

Notwithstanding the unfavorable report referred to, however, 
the evidences of the existence of animal magnetism continued 
to present themselves, enlisting the attention gradually of much 
wiser men than those who had denounced it. Such distinguished 
thinkers as Cuvier, Laplace, Humboldt, Coleridge, Dugald 
Stewart, and others became identified with the new theme. In 
1831 its claims to a place among the accredited sciences of 
the day were duly acknowledged in the report of a scientific 
commission, appointed, if I mistake not, in 1825 ; and all system- 
atic opposition ceased, — -although, even in the present day, a 
few dogmatists still fail not to denounce what others may have 
demonstrated without calling upon them for assistance. After 
the report of 1831 successful experiments were made, and the 
beneficial results of it as a pain-destroying and life-preserving 
agent were recognized in the hospitals of London and Paris ; and 
a professorship of animal magnetism was established in the med- 
ical college at Berlin. 

Among those of our own country who earliest became inter- 
ested in this matter was Prof. J. R. Buchanan, now of Boston, 
who has elucidated an anthropological science that has arrested 
the attention of thinkers of well nigh every school ; and who 
likewise was among the first to give in his adhesion to the glorious 
facts and philosophy of Spiritualism, — the all-comprehensive 
science of the sciences, as I have said, which is destined, eventu- 
ally, I doubt not, to illuminate the entire hemisphere of thought. 

As an evidence of still further progress in this direction, on 
the other side of the Atlantic, I may mention in passing that, 
while I was in London, a spiritual healing medium from our 
country was practicing with marked success in an extensive 
hospital in that city, — exciting astonishment as well as gratifi- 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE. 287 

cation among the professors and good sisters in attendance by 
the cures effected simply through the laying on of hands. 

But, to resume ; very many surgical operations, as you are 
doubtless aware, both in this country and in Europe, have been 
performed during the coma produced through this invisible 
agent in the human system, and without pain. During the prog- 
ress of these early investigations, however, in our own country, 
as I well remember, still more wonderful, and at that time 
wholly unanticipated, phenomena presented themselves. The 
subjects of the will of the operator through this agent, for in- 
stance, would occasionally, when placed in the magnetic sleep, 
become clairvoyant and clairaudient, so that their vision and 
hearing would not be limited by darkness, distance, or the ma- 
teriality of intervening substances. More wonderful, and still 
less expected, incidents followed, — these subjects finally became 
entirely independent of the control of the operator, as clairvoy- 
ants and clairaudients, professed to see and converse with the 
spirits of departed men, — men long reported dead. Then arose 
an antagonism on the part of theology, even more bitter than 
that which had been previously manifested by the scientists. 
Nevertheless, investigation continued on the part of a few ; 
and a clearer conception and higher estimate was reached as to 
the capacities and powers of the inner, or spiritual, man than 
had hitherto been attained by any system of mental philosophy 
the world had known. So that when, a few years afterwards, 
the various other phenomena of Spiritualism in regard to the 
individuality and identity of the human spirit, as well as the per- 
petuity of individual consciousness and progress beyond the 
grave, began to be presented, the general mind was the better 
prepared to receive the glorious revealments which, despite the 
bitterest opposition, are now finding lodgment in the minds of 
the aspiring, and which are scattering sweet incense wherever 
these thoughts take root. 

Thus far in our investigations into the broad field of inquiry, 
which we begin to realize opens out inimitably to the aspiring 



288 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

soul, — we have become satisfied of the i-mportant fact, among 
others, that truth is a unit, however various may be the modes 
of its manifestation in the vast labyrinth of the universe. The 
sciences, for instance, as do the virtues, all interlock each other. 
Like unto the stones of an arch, no one can be wanting without- 
rendering conclusions as to the rest more or less insecure. 
Thus, we find, for instance, phrenology discovered a new science 
of mind ; Mesmer, whose facts are spiritual, discovered a new 
series of mental powers. Phrenology presented to the world a 
great fact ; Mesmer found a greater one within it. These dis- 
coveries, unitedly, led to a science which is able to combine 
and classify them both with its own facts, — the theosophical, 
philosophical, and scientific system termed Spiritualism, — a 
system which, notwithstanding the profundity of its precepts, 
and the solidity of its facts, is still ridiculed by a portion of the 
press, and denounced by most of the orthodox pulpits, for no 
other reason, apparently, than from its supposed unpopularity, 
as yet. By-and-bye, perhaps, when like unto Universalism, Uni- 
tarianism, and the temperance cause, — all of which were de- 
nounced, within my own recollection, by the two great institu- 
tions for good or evil, which I have named, — by-and-bye, I re- 
peat, when we shall be supposed to have acquired a little more 
of the honey-comb of popularity, these two ostensible educators 
of the people will allow us to worship God according to the dic- 
tates of our own judgments, without any misplaced animadver- 
sions upon our personal appearance, our social status, or the 
integrity of our purposes. 

Notwithstanding, however, the antagonism of such seraphi- 
cides as seem willing, under the influence of theological teach- 
ings, to murder the best feelings of our common humanity, and 
hesitate not to flout the dear departed to their faces, because of 
the utter overthrow of the doctrine of a material resurrection, 
and the announced escape of these friends from the voracious 
worms of an orthodox grave, — notwithstanding the opposition 
of such as these, still we will not hesitate to rejoice with ex- 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE. 289 

ceeding joy at the majestic stride which we have been enabled 
to make, through the inculcations of Spiritualism, along the 
pathway of human progress, — a, lengthened leap, as it were, 
from the uncertainties of metaphysical disquisition to the mathe- 
matical demonstration of the grand truth of all the ages, the 
perpetuity of individual consciousness, individual affection, and 
individual progress beyond the tomb. 

" But," says the skeptic, "you cannot prove immortality to a 
mathematical demonstration." 

In reply, I submit briefly in addition to the facts of Spiritual- 
ism, the following, — the idea of one of our best thinker's propo- 
sition : " What is a mathematical demonstration but a mental 
or spiritual process by which you ascertain the definition and 
limitation of certain truths or ideas, and find out their relation 
in the realm of mind or matter ? The mind which performs 
these processes and understands these truths and their relations 
is itself mathematical ; else it could neither perform or under- 
stand them, and thus proves its own immortality in the process. 
For, as these mathematical truths are immortal, so must the 
mind be that demonstrates them. All mathematical definitions 
and limitations are but the product of the mind itself ; and as 
the mind which demonstrates must be fully equal if not superior 
to the truth demonstrated, and of the same character with it, it 
must of necessity include or encompass the truth which it 
demonstrates, and hence is equally imperishable. As truth can 
never disintegrate or perish, so it is impossible for the mind 
which demonstrates truth to disintegrate or perish. And as the 
mind is conscious of the truth and its demonstration, so must 
this consciousness be as eternal as the truth itself." 

But, to continue more immediately the discussion of my theme ; 
as clairvoyance and clairaudience were among the first recog- 
nized phenomena claimed as demonstrating the individuality and 
immortality of the human spirit, I propose, in accordance with 
the declaration of my text, to consider more especially the 
plausibility and probability of their existence, as deduced from 



290 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

the revealments of physical science. The Spiritual school itself 
needs no other proof than that already obtained from experience 
and observation of the psychic phenomena of which I am speak- 
ing ; but as the .skeptic seeks to repudiate such phenomena on 
the ground of a want of sufficient testimony, it is altogether 
appropriate to present additional evidence from other platforms 
than our own, from material standpoints of observation which 
may be more readily recognized by the general investigator. 
Thus, to proceed in our argument, — and allow me to ask your 
close attention, — scientists tell us that the various objects by 
which we are surrounded during our earthly existence consist of 
forms and life that in their action affect or impress us as certain 
degrees of undulatory motion or pulse-beats ; that is, this world 
is made up of forms that have certain undulatory motions or 
pulse-beats per second. All things perceptible to the natural 
eye are included within a certain scale, termed the chromatic 
scale of motion. We see, for instance, a tree or a man because 
their bodies or action affect us as a certain number of vibrations 
or pulse-beats upon the optic nerve per second. And this num- 
ber is included in this chromatic scale. All forms that j)ulsate 
above this material scale are invisible, and all forms that pulsate 
below this scale are likewise invisible. This scale of vision, 
denominated material, is the solar spectrum. A beam of light 
passing through a prism is bent, divided, and spread out, dis- 
playing seven colors successively, and this is calle*d the solar 
spectrum. All the material world of which man is the apex is 
included, we are told, between the extreme colors of the solar 
spectrum, which are red and violet. That is, any object or being 
to be seen by us must affect us as do the colors red, orange, 
yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, or some combination of these. 
And they all stand for a certain number of beats or pulsations 
that strike upon the optic nerve per second. 

Science gives us the following as the entire solar spectrum 
scale of undulations or pulsations, as they strike upon the eye : — 

Four hundred and seventy-seven trillions of pulsations, or 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE. 291 

beats, striking the eye every second, cause the sensation, or give 
the understanding the idea, of red. 

Five hundred and six trillions of pulsations per second cause 
the sensation of orange. 

Five hundred and thirty-five trillions of pulsations per second 
cause the sensation of yellow. 

Five hundred and seventy-seven trillions of pulsations per 
second cause the sensation of green. 

Six. hundred and twenty-two trillions of pulsations per second 
cause the sensation of hlue. 

Six hundred and fifty-eight trillions of pulsations per second 
cause the sensation of indigo. 

Six hundred and ninety-nine trillions of pulsations, or beats, 
striking the eye every second, cause the sensation of violet. 

This scale is, of course, subject to the variations incidental to 
the condition of the eye in different persons. Speaking in gen- 
eral terms, in order that we may see any form or object, it must 
send forth and impress our eyes with some number of vibrations 
or pulsations per second, included between the lowest, red, and 
the highest, violet, or between the numbers four hundred and 
seventy-seven trillions and six hundred and ninety-nine trillions 
of pulsations upon the eye per second. These are the maximum 
and minimum limit of the visible material world. Any form or 
object, therefore, vibrating less than four hundred and seventy- 
seven trillions of times per second upon the eye, or more than 
six hundred and ninety-nine trillions of times, would be invisi- 
ble, because too gross or too fine to affect the optic nerve of 
humanity. Owing to these facts in nature, some persons, as you 
are doubtless aware, are what is termed color-blind, being wholly 
unable to distinguish one color from another. Indeed, color- 
blindness is declared to be much more prevalent than is gener- 
ally supposed. Experiments in this particular, made some time 
since in Europe, demonstrate that in Edinburg it affects over 
seventeen per cent of the inhabitants examined ; in England 
from eight to twelve per cent ; in Prussia over twelve per cent ; 



292 CTNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

and in Russia and Sweden the percentage is said to be much 
higher; whilst the railroad companies of our own country, I 
am told, have had to discharge quite a number of otherwise 
efficient employees because of their inability to distinguish the 
different colored lights used at night as signals ; and from which 
inability, I doubt not, some of the casualties upon our roads 
may have occurred. Perhaps it is for this reason that, when a 
peculiar shade of ribbon is desired by our wives and daughters, 
the masculine portion of the family are rarely asked to make 
the selection. HencC) science declares that there are myriads 
of forms and objects all around us in the universe, both great 
and small, which many persons never perceive with the natural 
eye, and under the ordinary conditions of life. But, when 
learued men tell us that other conditions are necessary in order 
that we may see these forms and objects, and when they bid us 
look through the microscope and telescope that we may enlarge 
our sphere of vision, shall we get up a senseless laugh at the 
idea of conditions with which we are not familiar being neces- 
sary? and, refusing to use the instruments which science has 
provided to aid our vision, because the mechanism of some of 
the instruments has been proved to be imperfect, shall we per- 
sist in declaring that there are no such objects and forms such 
as these learned men through these agencies profess to see ? 
Such a species of skepticism with regard to the demonstrations 
of physical science existed during the century adorned by the 
genius of Galileo, as instanced in a previous lecture, the learned 
professors at Padua refusing to look through his telescope, and 
yet denying the truth of his astronomical discoveries. And I 
fear that in the present age, even in our own country of pro- 
fessedly free thought, it is too often the case that a similar method 
of stultification presents itself with regard to the dawning spir- 
itual and moral truths of the hour. Men and women refuse to 
test the validity of mediumship because of the reputed fraud of 
some of the mediums, and yet deny the truths we profess to have 
received through this glorious benediction. 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE. 293 

To resume : the law of limitation as to a greater or less 
number of vibratory influences applicable to sight obtains like- 
wise in the material world of sound. The organization of the 
ear, in common with the entire workmanship of the Infinite 
Artificer, is exceedingly beautiful. Divested of technicalities, 
the process by which you are enabled to hear what is gener- 
ally passing around you is somewhat as follows : a noise occurs, 
for instance, in any part of a room where you may be ; the 
air of the room being thus disturbed, its undulatory motion car- 
ries the sound to the outer chamber of the ear, where it strikes 
upon the tympanum or drum, which is a membrane separating 
the inner portion of the ear from the external passage. This 
tympanum, acting as a sounding-board, carries the noise into 
the middle chamber, where exists what may be termed a mi- 
nute hammer and anvil. The conc.ussion thus produced sets 
the hammer in motion, which conveys the noise still further 
on into the third chamber of the ear, where exists what may 
be compared to an exceedingly minute and delicate pearly-lake. 
Resting immediately above this little lake are the termini of the 
auditory nerves. The continued atmospheric motion produced 
by the hammer agitates the surface of the lake, and the tiny 
waves thereof, coming in contact with the nerves, convey the 
sound to the brain, from whence the intelligent principle takes 
up the disturbance, and interprets the same through the outer 
consciousness. There is an upper and a lower limit to sounds 
as well as to sight, varying in accordance with organizational 
differences. Noises may become musical, we are told, if only 
they succeed each other at equal intervals of time, and with 
sufficient rapidity. If a watch could be caused to tick a hundred 
times in a second, the ticks would lose their individuality, and 
blend into a musical tone. If the flapping of a pigeon's wings 
could be accomplished at the same rate, the bird would make 
music in its flight. The humming-bird does this ; so, likewise, 
the mosquito, and thousands of insects whose wings vibrate with 
great rapidity. 



294 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

The apparent sensitiveness of the human ear, however, to 
the lowest and hitherto unappreciable sounds, together with the 
facilities of transmitting the same, have been wonderfully in- 
creased within a very recent period by the discovery of the 
qualities of the telephone, the microphone, and kindred apparatus. 
It is now a known fact that by suspending finely divided mer- 
cury, by heating the latter and plunging it into quicksilver, — 
by which process the charcoal becomes 'infiltrated with the mer- 
cury in minutest and continuous particles, — and that, by uniting 
a broken circuit with a " transmitter " of this sort, an amazingly 
increased sensitiveness to sound is displayed, as well as a won- 
derful power of convejing it with the utmost fidelity. A touch 
of the finger on the vibrating plate of the microphone, it is said, 
is conducted to the speaking end in a volume of vibration like 
the rustle of a forest ; the beating of a pulse, or the ticking of a 
watch, is found to pass with perfect clearness through a resist- 
ance representing a hundred miles of space or more ; and when 
a fly walks over the plate, the tramp of its feet is most distinctly 
caught like that of some six-legged horse trotting, and it has 
been heard to trumpet from its raised proboscis like an elephant 
in an Indian jungle. Sounds, in fact, totally inaudible before to 
human ears, are arrested and reported by this simple expedient 
of interrupting the electrical circuit with a finely divided con- 
ducting material. 

Some very beautiful and wonderful instances of sympathy 
of sound exist, likewise. When a string, or column of air in a 
pipe, is put in vibration, it not only vibrates as a whole, but 
subdivides itself into proportional parts, each of which has its 
own time of vibration, and gives forth its own sound. These 
supplementary sounds are called harmonics ; and it is the min- 
gling of these with the fundamental note produced by the vibra- 
tion of the whole string, or air column, that determines the 
quality of the emitted tone. A violin and a clarionet may give 
forth the same note, yet their sounds will be quite different in 
tone, because the auxiliary vibrations accompanying the funda- 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE. 295 

mental note in each are different. The Germans call this 
property by a name meaning sound-color. The French, like- 
wise, have a term for it, meaning sound. Prof. Tyndall sug- 
gests that there should be an English name for it. He pro- 
poses clang-tint as the most expressive term, and uses it in his 
lectures. Vibrations imparted to the air are frequently taken 
up by solid bodies at a distance. When music is played, it is 
not uncommon, it is stated, to hear the lamp glasses, or other 
sounding bodies, join in the concert. In such cases, it is said, 
the glass picks out from the general clamor that particular set 
of vibrations which it is capable of taking uf), and rings in har- 
mony with the note producing them, whenever the note is 
sounded. A sounding tuning-fork will thus excite a silent one 
to play with it. Two pendulum-clocks fixed to the same wall, 
or two watches lying on the same table, will take the same rate 
of going through this sympathetic communication of vibrations ; 
and what is more remarkable, if one pendulum-clock be set 
going in one room, and another in an adjoining room is not 
going, we are assured, the ticks of the moving clock, transmitted 
through the wall, will start its neighbor. 

Here is a class of phenomena, wonderful and beautiful, which 
declare that in the world of sound there is a law of sympathetic 
communication of vibrations, by and through which material 
objects may and do act in harmonious unity. Accepting this fact 
in regard to impersonal and inert particles of matter, can it 
be possible that the age will much longer continue to doubt the 
evidence of similar phenomena in favor of the existence of a 
law of intellectual and emotional sympathy, by and through 
which human souls may commune the one with the other, 
although the world's broad graveyards lie between ? Let us 
continue to hope not. 

Returning again to the immediate line of my argument, 
the highness or lowness, what is called the pitch, of a sound 
depends upon the rapidity with which vibrations or pulse-beats 
strike upon the tympanum of the ear. When they come at the 



296 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

rate of fifty or sixty per second, we have a deep, growling, base 
sound ; when at the rate of from twenty to thirty thousand per 
second, the sound is a piercing treble. The human ear becomes 
deaf to such high sounds as result from extremely rapid pulsa- 
tions. The tympanic membrane, it seems, is incapable, gener- 
ally, of receiving and communicating more than about twenty- 
three thousand blows in a second ; but the limit, as with the 
optic nerve, varies with different persons, naturally, — that is, 
when unaided by the various newly discovered apparatus of the 
present day. So that the rich cadences of brother Rodgers' 
voice, for instance, reach our ears in different tones, though 
with evident beauty and sweetness to all. The squeak of the 
bat, the chirrup of the house-sparrow, the sound of a cricket, 
are unheard by some persons who possess a sensitive ear for 
lower sounds. Indeed, scientific investigators into these wonders 
of the physical organism tell us that the ascent of a single note 
is sufficient to produce the change from sound to silence. 

But this domain of hitherto seeming silence is being already 
invaded, as I have instanced, through human discovery and in- 
vention, and what shall be further revealed, even from this dim 
realm of the material world, even in 'the near future, who shall 
dare to conjecture? Science already anticipates, it is declared, 
that the perfected microphone will convey to us even the hidden 
ripple of the sap rising in growing trees and plants, which, 
Humboldt said, might be a continuous melody in the auditory 
organs of earth's smallest creatures. 

From what I have said it will be perceived that this material 
world of ours — the world that we ordinarily see and hear— - 
is included within certain scales or octaves of color and sound. 
Below and above these, however refined and minute, it is begin- 
ning to be evident are many other colors and sounds, in what 
may be termed the ethereal realm ; but we have been hitherto 
taught to consider aught outside the visible, material world as 
beyond the domain of human thought and investigation. Science 
and an expounding spiritual perception, however, are enabling 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE. 297 

us to look over the boundary line between the material and the 
immaterial, and to extend our researches into the super-mun- 
dane and the spiritual. And the questions for the present age 
to determine, and which Spiritualism and science are rapidly 
solving, are these : Are there objects and beings, as well as 
colors and sounds — is there another world, so to speak — outside 
of the material scale or octaves of color and of sound to which 
I have referred ? And, if so, is this world in sufficiently close 
proximity to that as to enable man to communicate therewith, 
and to gain any knowledge thereof as long as he remains in the 
body ? 

Let us examine a little closer as to these questions, that I 
may more readily reach the point aimed at. In the solar spec- 
trum, science tells us, the different colors represent different 
properties of force. Thus, the red or orange colors or'* rays 
manifest the greatest heating properties or forces ; whilst the 
indigo and violet produce the greatest chemical effects. In illus- 
tration, you will remember that, when a beam of solar light is 
admitted into a dark room, and concentrated on a prism by 
means of a lens, after it emerges from the prism on a screen, it 
is found to present a band of colors in the order, as I have 
stated, of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, and 
that these constitute the solar spectrum, each color band repre- 
senting a certain number or division of light, vibrations, or 
beats per second. Now, if a thermopile, which is an instrument 
used in the place of a thermometer in all investigations requir- 
ing great delicacy and accuracy, is presented to these bands suc- 
cessively, it has been discovered that the heating power increases 
in passing through the different bands from violet to red ; whilst 
chemical action increases in passing the pile in the opposite 
direction, — that is, from red to violet. And, further, as I wish 
you to particularly observe, it has been ascertained that there 
are still greater heating forces, or vibrations, outside of, and 
below, the lowest visible red. Likewise, outside of, and above, 
the violet have been discovered almost another whole octave of 



298 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

vibrations or chemical forces, which are imperceptible to the 
material sight, and hence entirely beyond the uses of this ma- 
terial world. The heating and chemical forces are rendered 
manifest by their effects, although unseen. Science asserts that 
they are thus invisible because the vibrations producing them 
are too fine or too rapid to be recognized by the material eye, 
and but scarcely, if at all, to be apprehended when aided by the 
use of material apparatus. 

Here, then, is another scale or octave of solar vibrations and 
colors, — outside of, and above the material one, — continuous 
from it, all unseen by the material eye, and yet rendered dis- 
tinctly manifest to the understanding, through chemical action. 
Hence, material science is unable to inform us of what use 
these colors are, or to what realm they belong. And, yet, we 
knowj as far as material and spiritual investigations have reached, 
that the law of use is one of the predominating factors in the 
majestic and divinely-ordered universe which we inhabit. 

And, thus, my friends, if I err not in the line of my argument, 
is the great fact established through scientific data, from which 
may be legitimately deduced the conclusion at which I am aim- 
ing, — that is, the plausiblity and possibility of the demonstra- 
tions claimed by the spiritual school as to clairvoyance and 
clairaudience. And the conclusion, it seems to me, is warrant- 
able by every rule of reasoning. 

In consonance with the scientific facts just stated, as most of 
you are aware, Spiritualists believe the fact fully established 
that the spirit world surrounds and interpenetrates the material 
universe ; and that it is as closely united thereto as is the soul 
to the body, — in other words, that this world is but the vestibule 
to an inner and more ethereal realm, which is as substantial and 
real to the spiritual senses as are the objects and beings of this 
world to the material senses. We believe further that man 
is a spiritual being clothed in flesh but for the purposes of time ; 
that he is possessed of every spiritual faculty and sense that he 
can ever be possessed of, — deficient only in the ratio of devel 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE. 299 

opment ; that man has a living and perpetual connection, either 
consciously or unconsciously with angel life ; and that this 
relationship to the interior is as necessary to the growth and 
expansion of the spiritual powers as is the circulation of the 
blood to the vitality of the physical body. We believe that 
this connection with the world of spirits may be resolved into 
intelligent communion, under harmonious conditions, propor- 
tioned to individual effort and desire ; and that under the quick- 
ening influences of the spirits of our friends who have preceded 
us to the higher life, with whom we may thus commune, our 
own spiritual faculties and senses may be rendered more active 
and potent. We not only believe these things, but, if reliance is 
to be had upon human capacity, and human testimony, we know 
them to he true ; as well as the fact that, both sight and hearing, 
independent of the material organs, are the spiritual attributes 
of the race, even whilst in the "muddy vesture of decay," which 
we call the body. 

In proof of this last-named fact, as you are aware, we have 
already amongst us, and the number is increasing, those who 
profess to see and hear what is inaudible and invisible to the 
general eye and ear. To those of us who have given years of 
investigation to these assumptions, it is undoubtedly evident that 
these persons hear sounds, distinguish colors, and see beings 
and objects without the aid of the material auditory, or optic 
nerve, — and this, too,, without any material apparatus. Miss 
Mollie Fancher, the bed-ridden medium of Brooklyn, very many 
times during the last eight or ten years has given most incontest- 
able evidence of hearing sounds, evidently from the border land 
of the inner world, that are utterly inaudible to external ears, 
of perceiving and assorting colors without the aid of the exter- 
nal eye, and of seeing sights no human eye can discern. And 
these facts in Miss Fancher's. experiences have been so well 
attested that they are now rarely denied, except by the most 
persistent skeptic as to the spiritual existence or power, at all. 

Many other cases of general clairvoyance and clairaudience, 



300 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

more or less marked, exist in this and other towns and cities 
throughout the land, to dispute the existence of which would 
be tantamount to ignoring the evidence of our senses altogether. 
I have two or three cases in my mind at the present moment 
of persons who have given evidence of seeing in the dark as 
clearly as most of us see in the light ; whilst many others are 
privileged to listen frequently to the whispers of their angel 
friends. 

There are also wonderful medical clairvoyants who are en- 
abled by their powers, and the aid of the spirit atmosphere 
through which they look, to perceive the internal condition of 
the physical organism, and thus diagnose diseases with equal, 
and in many cases superior, accuracy to that of cultivated physi- 
cians and physiologists. Indeed, without further adverting to 
particular cases, among Spiritualists, at least, clairvoyance and 
clairaudience are as patent as the light of the noon day sun well 
nigh, whether the mass of humanity recognize the fact or not. 
But to the doubter I would say : shall we deny repeated, positive 
declaration of spiritual sight and hearing simply because not 
possessed ourselves of. a sufficient degree of development in the 
requisite faculties for either ? Or shall we adopt the mystical 
explanation of such phenomena (as far as clairvoyance is con- 
cerned) recently presented in Great Britain, in which it is de- 
clared by a learned gentlemen that the assumed clairvoyant 
perception of spirits is " explicable satisfactorily to the physio- 
logical mind on the idea that an image has been retained and 
formed in the sight centers, and has been unconsciously pro- 
jected forward from the background of consciousness to assume 
the veritable appearance of a human figure or specter " ? I quote 
the exact words of Mr. A. Wilson, F. R. S. E., which explana- 
tion may have been lucid and satisfactory to the gentleman him- 
self, but, I must freely confess, it is much more deficient of 
comprehension to my mind than is the fact itself which he 
assumes to explain away. 

Or, rather, in connection with the scientific facts which I have 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRATJDIENCB. 301 

given in regard to the existence of actual sounds and colors, 
wholly outside of and beyond the uses of this material world, 
would it not be the part of wisdom to recognize the natural 
inference, the unavoidable conclusion, as it seems to me, that 
there must be an interior world of objects and forms, and of 
beings likewise, together with atmospheric illuminations, corre- 
sponding in invisible and inaudible properties to the existing next 
higher octave of solar vibrations and sound pulsations manifested 
by science, to which I have referred, — aye, a world of brighter 
colors and sweeter sounds, and hence a world of more refined, 
more exalted, and happier beings, — the glorious world toward 
which we are tending, and which our clairvoyants and clairau- 
dients, to a limited extent at least, must both see and hear ? I 
say this conclusion seems to me unavoidable, and the rationale 
of this conclusion becomes more apparent, reasoning analogic- 
ally from the evidences of infinite adaptation and design all 
around us, even in this little segment of creation, the earth. 
And how much more may we anticipate the same divine benefi- 
cence in the realms that lie beyond the confines of mere material 
sight and sound ! The operations of the divine in nature, even 
in this sphere, are so beautiful, and so complete, that we ever 
look upon its face, and all its successive and recurring appoint- 
ments with expectant surety. "When the glorious orb of day 
is climbing in crimson glory over the mountain tops, we are 
not more certain that he is coming to rule the day just dawning 
than when not the faintest tinge of its light paints the high gates 
of the orient. Never since the earth commenced its diurnal 
revolutions has the sun failed to appear.. We know that it will 
appear tomorrow, and upon every successive tomorrow through- 
out the continuous and untold cycles of time. So do I feel 
with regard to the guiding and governing hand of nature, whom- 
soever or whatsoever that hand may be. For well I know the 
Infinite Hand that is guiding and governing this world through 
co-existent laws never makes an uncertain stroke, or a blurred 
outline." It cannot be, then, it seems to me, that outside the 



802 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

limits of material sight and sound mistakes are to commence, 
adaptation fail, and design prove purposeless. Shall we not, 
rather, accept the reveal ments of the thermopile, and the declara- 
tions of clairvoyance and clairaudience as strikingly confirma- 
tory of each other, and at the same time united testimony in 
favor of the existence of another world, as I have said, of sweet 
sounds and bright colors, where, in the coming future, all ma- 
terial environments and bodily infirmities left behind, we shall 
see, not as " through a glass darkly," but where the divine 
light of our surroundings shall illuminate the soul forever. 

I have thus given you, as briefly as may be, the grounds upon 
which I base the claim that, in addition to the testimony of the 
convincing phenomena familiar to Spiritualists, the plausibility 
and probability of clairvoyance and clairaudience are most cer- 
tainly deducibie from scientific data. But, in making this de- 
claration, I am well aware that I shall meet with the opposition 
of the bigoted and prejudiced of well nigh every class. For he 
who carefully observes and attempts to promulgate any fact of 
an extraordinary character in Christendom, in regard to the 
human soul, its present powers, or future destiny, if that fact 
happen to contravene popular opinion or preconceived ideas, 
must expect denial, ridicule, and abuse ; and to be treated with 
more or less of civility in the expression, either as a knave or a 
fool, either as a deceiver himself or as the victim of imposition 
on the part of others. But, still, the fact remains that clairvoy- 
ants and clairaudients do see and hear without the use of the 
material eye and ear, and likewise independent of all mechan- 
ical appliances. The fact likewise remains established by ma- 
terial science, as I have briefly shown, that there are sounds and 
colors evidently not belonging to this material sphere, — because 
utterly outside of and beyond the recognition of the material 
senses, and hence useless unless belonging to or constituting 
a connecting link with the realm of sweet sounds and bright 
colors into which our clairvoyants look, and from whence our 
clairaudients hear. Or, if these sounds and colors outside of and 



CLAIRVOYANCE A^T> CLAIE AUDIENCE. 303 

above the solar spectrum are to be pronounced useless, then it 
will have to be admitted that this uselessness constitutes an 
anomaly that exists nowhere else in the harmonious and majes- 
tic universe in which we live, move, and have our being. 

In conclusion, permit me to add that surely the declaration 
of so grand a truth in psychology, in connection with so impor- 
tant a fact in material science as these of which I have been 
speaking, should unitedly command the attention of all classes 
of mind everywhere, no matter to what school of thought they 
may belong ; more especially when, through these and kindred 
phenomena, we find, likewise, unmistakable evidences of the 
perpetuity of individual consciousness and individual progress 
beyond the grave ; the watchful guardianship of disembodied, 
not dead, friends ; the wonderful healing of physical disease ; 
together with many other works of angel beneficence calculated 
to cheer the soul in time, and brighten all its prospects amid the 
unending pathways of an illimitable future. Most assuredly, the 
nature and office of the human soul while in the body, together 
with its welfare and destiny when the body shall have been laid 
aside forever, — with their legitimate corollaries, as presented in 
the gospel of Spiritualism, — are studies of greater importance 
and deeper interest to the race than any that have ever reached 
the human mind from 

" Beyond the verge of that blue sky 
Where God's sublimest secrets lie," 

and as such, may we not trust, will soon be esteemed as worthy 
the consideration of the press, the pulpit, and the people. 

In full confidence, may I not say to you, my brother and 
sister Spiritualists, is not this glorious philosophy, this beau- 
tiful gospel of verification, with all its multiplied and cheer- 
ing revealments, worthy of the profoundest investigation, and 
of the intensest affection, as well as the most liberal support, 
notwithstanding theological denunciation, journalistic ridicule, 
and popular rejection, — inculcating, as it does, a higher appre- 
ciation of all the sublimer possibilities of our nature, — a loftier 



304 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

conception of the divine revelations of the universe we inhabit, 
with a most ennobling sense of that infinite love and wisdom 
that undoubtedly rule in the realm of destiny. 



LECTURE XVn. 

WHAT SPIRITUALISTS BELIEVE. 

A new-year's addbess. 

** Yet another chief is carried 

From life's battle on his spears 
To the great Valhalla cloisters 
Of the ever-living years. 

Yet another year, the mummy 

Of a warlike giant vast, 
Is niched within the pyramid 

Of the ever-growing past. 

Years roll through the palm of ages, 

As the dropping rosary speeds 
Through the cold, impassive fingers 

Of a hermit at his heads. 

One year falls and ends its penance, 

One arises with its needs ; 
And 'tis ever thus prays nature, 

Only telling years for heads. 

Years, like acorns from the branches 

Of the giant oak of time, 
Fill the earth with healthy seedlings 

For a future more sublime." 

The old year with all its joys and griefs, its trials, disasters, 
and numerous experiences, has finally been registered upon the 
calendar of time. As the future shall continue the measured 

(305) 



306 FNANSWEEABLE LOGIC. 

tread of experiences to come, the reminiscences of the year 
that has departed will be felt and seen stalking along the aisles 
of the mind like what may be termed so many intellectual 
and emotional ghosts, laden with weal or woe for each one of 
us. The year which has departed is not dead. It still lives 
in its legitimate results ; and, in its unavoidable sequences, has 
projected its essential self far on into the future, where, in some 
sense, we shall' meet and recognize it again. It is a philo- 
sophical truth that the past is unescapable, and that all men and 
all women have a past, which has again to be met in some form 
either here or hereafter. Although at times it would seem to 
some minds that so-called fate had accomplished its purpose in 
a moment, as it were, — although 

"There are swift hours in life — strong, rushing hours — 
That do the work of tempests in their might," — 

yet it is, nevertheless, a fact that time is not merely a continued 
recurrence of days and years, or a simple succession of events 
chronologically computed, but is a great and interminable chain 
of causes and effects which, with the diamond-pointed pen of 
organic law, are being continually and indelibly recorded upon 
the tablet of the soul ; and with every passing year each soul 
carries the record onward. The past of each one of us, doubt- 
less, has its mistakes and its misdirections. Independent, there- 
fore, of the mistakes, the misdirections, or the beliefs of others, 
it is at all times the part of wisdom that each mind for itself 
should study to meet his or her own past unflinchingly, both 
here and hereafter, aiming to gather from experience the only 
true philosophy of life, that of converting each hour, each day, 
and each year as it passes into a cheerful prophecy of happi- 
ness in the future. 

Another year has dawned upon the earth ; and another twelve 
months of experiences in time, I trust, is before ns all. For the 
experiences of the earth li'fe seem evidently to constitute an 
important part of that divine plan which infinite wisdom has 



WHAT SPIRITUALISTS BELIEVE. 307 

instituted for the consummation of human glory in those brighter 
regions of the immeasurable beyond, after time's record for us 
shall have come to a close. Hence the propriety, as it appears 
to me, at the opening of a new year, for a calm consideration 
of the various themes comprehended in my text : " What Spirit- 
ualists believe." 

Not that I would by any means wish to be understood as 
using this word in an ecclesiastical sense, that is, as indorsing 
a blind belief founded upon established authority, touching any 
arbitrary decrees as to the future condition of the race ; for, with 
regard to the established dogmas of popular theology, I hold 
that a judicious skepticism is the highest duty, and blind faith 
a near approach to the unpardonable sin ; and that belief in the 
human soul which holds its convictions of today open to the 
demonstration of tomorrow, and which rests for justification not 
in faith, but alone in verification, is certainly somewhat of im- 
portance in this life, and relatively so in the next. The more 
especially is this a fact if it be true that "as a man thinketh so 
is he"; and that "a healthful present is a sure guarantee of a 
wholesome future." What men believe, therefore, outside of 
prescribed or established faiths, and what they do not believe, 
become of importance as far as the happiness of this life is con- 
cerned, as well as that of another. Thus, at the opening of the 
new year, may it not be well for each mind to inquire as to 
its own especial beliefs ? In no dogmatic spirit, therefore, but 
fraternally inspired I propose to offer today, in a plain and 
simple manner, a few suggestions as to some of the fundamental 
propositions of the spiritual school, as I understand them. 

In the first place, in general terms, the Spiritualists may 
truthfully exclaim, in the language of a modern poet : — 

"As other men have creeds, so I have mine; 
I keep the holy faith in God and man, 
And in the angel ministrants between." 

Or, in the words of another : — 



308 UNAi^SWERABLE LOGIC. 

" I hold a faith more dear to me 
Than earth's rich mines, or fame's proud treasury ; 

A faith that plucks from death its sting 

Communes with angels every day, 
Sees God, the good, in everything. 

Where truth eternal holds her sway." 

And yet again : — 

" In me God dwelleth ; 
Jin Him and He mme, 

And my yearning soul he fllleth 
Here and through eternity." 

In other words, iadependent of all external authority, the 
Spiritualist, through his inner senses, aided by spiritual culture, 
apprehends the existence of one primal cause of all causes, one 
infinite soul in whom all things live, and move, and have their 
being. That this principle of good embodies and enzones all 
principles of mind and ail properties of matter, all wisdom, and 
all love, all life, and all motion ; the infinite manifestation in 
everything, from atoms to astral systems, from the animalcule 
to the archangel ; and that, divested of educational faith and 
arbitrary decree, such is and must be the spontaneous appre- 
hension of the world's consciousness ; such must be the funda- 
mental basis of all true philosophy. He believes that this infinite 
soul of the universe is necessarily impersonal, incomprehensible, 
undefinable ; and alike imminent in mind and in matter, in 
spirit and in space ; and that man, as an ultimate of material 
conformation, and as a microcosm of the vast macrocosm of ex- 
ternal nature, is an emanation interiorly or spiritually from this 
divine source of life, and is necessarily a recipient in an especial 
degree, in his spiritual nature, of the impersonal faculties of this 
all-pervading infinite spirit, partakes in a finitely individual and 
spiritual sense of this everlasting vital essence of being ; and is 
therefore, from the nature of his origin, as a spiritual being, in- 
nately divine and immortal. Hence, the external, physical body, 



WHAT SPIRITUALISTS BELIEVE. 309 

of which men and women are often much too vain, is not all 
there is of man ; but simply a beautiful and intricate piece of 
machinery, most wonderful in capacities as a channel of com- 
munication between the real and spiritual man within, and the 
external world without, of which the physical man is a complete 
epitome. Indeed, each delicate strand of the nervous portion 
of this wonderful piece of mechanism serves as a telegraphic 
wire over which communications are being constantly trans- 
mitted between the internal consciousness and the external 
world. Man exists in time, therefore, strictly speaking, as a 
trinity, but, in the especial sense of which I am now speaking, 
as a duality, connected with this outer plane of being through 
the external senses and the hourly necessities of the material 
body, which the earth is so admirably adapted to supply ; and 
holding as direct connection, more or less consciously, with the 
interior or spiritual realm toward which he is hastening, through 
spiritual senses and faculties, which are being thus educated and 
prepared for more exalted and unlimited uses when the outer 
covering shall have been laid aside. So that the attributes of 
the divine nature, and the functions of the spiritual life, finitely 
circumscribed, superadded to the blessed privilege of communion 
with the disinthralled denizens of that higher life, belong to the 
inner or diviner part of man ; whilst the elements and laws of 
the outer world are represented in the earthly body. Thus, all 
things meet, unite, and center in man. And thus through the 
faith of the Spiritualist is to be seen "an unbroken chain of 
being, from man on the one hand far away down to the inorganic 
primates of uncreated worlds ; and, on the other, from man up 
to the highest archangel nature that bows before the majesty of 
the universe." 

It will thus be seen that the estimate of the supreme source 
of existence entertained by the Spiritualist is in harmony with 
the most devoted reverence and the most exalted reason, strik- 
ingly in advance of any such puerile ideas as admit of "the 
Lord speaking unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to 



olO UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

his friend," or of God having to " come down to see the city 
and the tower which the children of men builded." From such 
an apprehension of the Infinite Soul, from whom all finite souls 
have emanated, what a truer estimate of man, his mission, and 
his destiny is the Spiritualist enabled to entertain. 

As legitimate corollaries upon what I have briefly given as 
his views of both God and man, human nature, in the estima- 
tion of the Spiritualist, is no longer "totally depraved," as taught 
in other schools of thought, and this world no longer an accursed 
worid. Man is no longer to be considered as a fallen creature, 
worthy only to be damned, or the earth any longer looked upon 
as under ban, and as the especial domain of the devil. On the 
contrary, the Spiritualists' philosophic lessons inculcate a higher 
appreciation of all the diviner intellectual and spiritual possi- 
bilities of a race originating as a direct emanation from the 
Infinite, a loftier realization of the grandeur and beauty of this 
majestic universe, and a truer sense of the unbounded goodness 
of that Almighty Power which infiltrates and animates the 
whole. 

Again, the Spiritualist believes, as indicated, that man is an 
individualized spiritual being, that the spiritual man is the real 
man, the external body being but the material covering, adapted 
alone to the uses and pleasures of the earth life ; and that, when 
the body dies, as it is termed, the man lives on in perpetual con- 
sciousness as a man ; that he has laid aside only the habiliments 
and customs of this life, and not life itself ; that the next sphere 
of life is but the continuance of the spiritual experiences of this ; 
that it is a world as natural to his spiritual senses, and as tan- 
gible, as are the objects and uses of this world to the senses of 
his material body; that the phenomenon called death, in its 
results, is really but the transference Of the constituent elements 
of the real man to another sphere, where he exists in a more 
refined but like form, with like features, like sentiments, and 
like emotions, subject there, as here, to the law of everlasting 
progression, proportioned to individual effort and individual 



WHAT SPIRITUALISTS BELIEVE. 311 

desire. And, further, the Spiritualist believes, or rather knows, 
that is, if the human mind can know anything through the force 
of evidence, that, after the resurrection from the body through 
the natural process of which I have spoken, this individualized, 
conscious, spiritual being can, and under favorable circumstances 
and conditions does, manifest himself or herself, and commune 
by various methods with those still remaining in the body, to 
whom they may be more or less attracted. To the Spiritualist, 
therefore, who fully appreciates this beautiful beneficence of spirit 
communion, there are no dead, whilst the graveyard to him is 
simply the common wardrobe of humanity, where is deposited 
the worn-out habiliments of time. Ask such an one as to the 
fate of his beloved and departed, and his philosophy, his glorious 
religion, sustained by indisputable facts and the truths of science, 
tells you that the trees and the grasses, the leaves and the flow- 
ers, the clouds, and the waters, the rocks and the earth, may 
alike embody the elements of the form that has been removed 
from material sight, which, becoming distributed through natural 
law, may today possibly aid in the decoration of the lily, wave 
in the emerald-topped verdure of the Nevadas, or make green 
some lonely isle. Passing by the ever-working code of life, they 
may rage in the white-capped billows of an angry ocean, or gayly 
deck the rosy couch of the setting sun ; may join in the anthem 
of Niagara's multitudinous waters, or dance in sunshine amid 
the luxuriance of a tropical clime ; thus continuing their unceas- 
ing round in harmony with the forces of nature, which are for- 
ever pulsing in the great body of matter ; but that the dear 
spirit who animated this form prior to its decomposition, who 
blessed him here through its agency, he feels and knows is still 
near him in a brighter and more enduring form, and is still his 
or her own immortal self. He feels, as he is assured throuo^h 
unmistakable demonstrations, that, growing in identity as well 
as in power, wisdom and love, upon whatever plane of life in the 
future they may meet, his beloved will still be his beloved ; and 
that, in the operations of the divine economy, what the universal 



312 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

soul of humanity demands with such ceaseless yearnings for its 
vanished idols will be granted ; that what Infinite wisdom has 
originated in time, Infinite love will undoubtedly perpetuate in 
eternity. 

In the old Brahmanical religion of the East, Brahm, the su- 
preme being, is represented as manifested in three beings, — 
Brahma, the creating power; Vishnu, the preserving power; 
and Siva, the destroying power of the universe. It is taught in 
this religion that the various important changes of this world in 
the past have been brought about by successive incarnations of 
Vishnu in the human form ; and that all important changes 
throughout the coming time are to be thus effected through 
divine incarnations. The same idea was practically entertained 
by the Jewish nation, both at an earlier and a later date. Moses, 
the prophets, Jesus, were all incarnations,— different forms, but 
the same principle in essence, adapted to existing conditions 
during different religious epochs. 

In my estimation, these successive ideas were but the results 
of the struggling efforts of mind during the ages of their concep- 
tion after a grander, nobler truth,— the individualized foreshad- 
owings of that broader principle now being heralded by clouds 
of witnesses from the land of the beautiful, — the bright home 
of the soul. Looking through the spiritual light of the present 
age, as the picture of the past presents itself to my mind, Moses, 
with all his errors, must have furnished to his day and genera- 
tion a sublime spectacle indeed, — standing alone, and animated 
by the influences of departed kindred, calling upon an enslaved 
nation to come out from amid the flesh-pots of Egypt, and go 
forth into the wilderness, with naught before them but what 
faith could promise. So, likewise, must the prophets have seemed 
when, through the spiritual illumination of the hour, they boldly 
announced the overthrow of the most powerful kingdoms of the 
earth. Sublimely beautiful must Jesus have appeared when 
announcing the principle of incarnation as existing in his disci- 
ples and in himself ; and when as a man, standing alone, amid 



WHAT SPIRITUALISTS BELIEVE. 313 

vascillating friends and determined enemies, he dared to die 
for what he believed to be true. So, too, in their day and gen- 
eration, with the inspired Zoroaster, the gifted Pythagoras, the 
sublime Socrates, the mediumistic Apollonius, the divinely hu- 
mane Marcus Aurelius, together with a host of other true and 
noble souls, who seem to have existed along the pathway of the 
past, like so many mental lamps, hung out as brilliant indices to 
grander purposes and more majestic deeds. Nor are the prin- 
ciples announced by these worthies — if true at all — any the 
less so today, or the sublimity of their lives in any manner 
detracted from, because neither the truths they uttered, nor the 
deeds they performed, were accepted by the ages in which they 
lived and acted. 

But, as I have said, the personal nobility and sublimity of 
past ages may be interpreted as so many individualized foreshad- 
owings of a broader and more universal principle of truth, now 
struggling for acceptance. Spiritualism, through its phenomena, 
and the legitimate and philosophical deductions therefrom, is 
extending this principle of incarnation much farther than has 
hitherto been taught, with a wider field of application, and with 
a more detailed and continuous operation. Indeed, Spiritualism 
teaches that this principle of incarnation is universal, and not 
exclusively confined to any one individual representative of the 
race, either in the past or in the present, — that all men are 
divine, by nature of their spiritual origin, as individual emanations 
from the Infinite Father Soul ; and that the most worthy aim 
and end of existence here is and should be the outworking of 
this divinity into practical life. Hence, whenever a new and 
beautiful thought impersonalizes itself in individual character; 
whenever aspiration springs anew, or mind enlarges with the 
nobleness of its own effort ; whenever man is elevated through 
the agency of his brother man, there may be found the anoint- 
ing oil, there is really the Messiah to the period, the Christ, the 
special incarnation. In the present age, as throughout the entire 
past, including the dawn of the Christian era, this principle is 



314 una:n^swerable logic. 

true, although it may fail, as then, to be fully recognized and 
appreciated. Divinity of purpose, holiness of motive, sympa- 
thetic benevolence in word and deed, constitute the sublimest 
incarnation of the hour, although purposes may be misappreci- 
ated, motives misunderstood, and words and deeds be as pearls 
trodden under feet of swine. 

In this connection, most truthfully and beautifully, hath the 
poet sung : — 

"Tell him that his very longing 
Is itself an answering cry ; 
That his prayer, ' Come, gracious Allah I ' 
Is my answer, ' Here am I.' 

Every inmost aspiration 

Is God's angel undefilecl ; 
And in every ' O ray Father' 

Slumbers deep a ' Here, my child.' ' 

But the known facts of Spiritualism from which are drawn 
the deductions, and upon which rest the beliefs of the Spiritual- 
ist, are denied existence, especially by the orthodox theologians 
of the day, and those who, either practically or theoretically, 
are under the influence of their teachings, — positively denied 
in the face of intelligent men and women who have devoted the 
best years of their lives to the subject, strange as it may seem, 
by those who have given the matter no other attention than 
what may be comprehended in imperious denial and unqualified 
denunciation. Indeed, it is a truth throughout Christendom, 
unfortunately, as stated in a previous lecture, that "he who care- 
fully observes and truly reports a fact of an extraordinary and 
supermundane character must expect denial, ridicule, and abuse, 
and to be treated (with more or less civility in the expression) 
as either a knave or a fool, a liar or a victim of imposition." 
From the Atlantic Monthly to Harper's Weekly, including the 
entire daily press, well nigh, and throughout society generally, 
he may look for every kind of injustice, from lofty scorn to vul- 
gar billingsgate. After all, however, the fact remains ; and he 



WHAT SPIRITUALISTS BELIEVE. 315 

who has reported the fact may be none the worse in the end for 
such unfriendly criticism. 

It may be asked, why should this be the case, especially in 
Christian communities ? To my mind, the answer at once pre- 
sents itself, thus : society in Christendom is the legitimate child 
of the orthodox Church, and catches its tone from her ; whilst 
the Church, as an organization, seems to be wholly ignorant of 
any logical conclusion as to the ground upon which her system 
was originally based. In the light of the spiritual phenomena 
and philosophy of today, however, the Spiritualists generally 
recognize and believe that there is a striking analogy between 
the phenomena occurring at the opening of the Christian era 
and those of the present age claiming to be spiritual. And hence 
my declaration that the Church is either ignorant of or pur- 
posely ignores the history of the life and times of him who is 
declared to have been its founder. 

To illustrate briefly : an angel announced to Joseph the con- 
dition of Mary prior to the birth of Jesus, the same angel hav- 
ing previously foretold to Zacharias the birth of John. Similar 
predictions are now made, and are afterwards verified. Under 
angelic influence, when a mere boy, Jesus confounded the learned 
men of his time. So, in the present day, all throughout the his- 
tory of this movement, spiritual mediums, even as children, have 
confounded the logic of the schools. Notably, I call to mind 
the world-renowned Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond, who, when a 
mere child, instructed the late Prof. Mapes (according to his 
own statement) in regard to certain facts in scientific agricult- 
ure of very material importance, which he afterwards gave to 
the world. Aided by spirit power, Jesus healed the sick, caused 
the blind to see, the lame to walk. So, likewise, are spiritual 
mediums doing in the present day, influenced by the same power, 
and through precisely the some law. Dr. McClannan and others 
are being thus beneficially exercised, for which it seems they 
are to be heavily taxed. Through the positive will of control- 
ling spirits, aided hy the harmony of his own organic develop- 



316 UK ANSWER ABLE LOGIC. 

ment, Jesus was enabled to cast out devils, or evil spirits ; and 
spiritual mediums of the present dispensation are doing the same 
thing, — relieving the obsessed, and restoring the lunatic to 
reason and happiness. It was charged in the days of Jesus, and 
it is charged today, and with equal falsity, that this power was 
exercised " through Beelzebub, the chief of the devils." Loving 
nature, and catching his best inspirations, when surrounded by 
the beautiful and the true, he retired with Peter, James, and 
John to a high mountain, "and is there transfigured before 
them"; and "there appeared unto them Moses and Elias, talk- 
ing with Jesus." Frequent similar manifestations have occurred, 
and are still occurring, in mediumistic circles at the present time. 
Upheld by spirit power, he walked upon the sea of Tiberias. 
Mr. Home, Mrs. Mary Ilollis Billing, Henry C. Gordon, Chas. 
G. Foster, and other spirit mediums of the present era, have not 
walked upon water, it is true, but have been suspended by spirit 
power, and floated in a more impalpable element, the natural 
atmosphere. In Gethsemane and before Pilate " an angel ap- 
peared, strengthening him "; and in modern times mediums too 
often have their Gethsemanes, and their persecutions in the 
courts, but, thank God, they have their strengthening angels, 
likewise. After his crucifixion, Jesus appeared to Mary, to 
Peter, and John, to the disciples on their way to Emmaus, when 
he expounded to them his mission ; and, at last, it is stated, 
" their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished 
out of sight." Similar manifestations to these, we all know, 
are occurring daily. And when the disciples were together, with 
closed doors, Jesus stood in their midst, and said; "Peace be 
unto you." But, says the record : " They were terrified and 
affrighted, and supposed they had seen a spirit "; as they most 
assuredly did, else how could he have appeared in their midst, 
with the room entirely closed, as is asserted ? He, likewise, 
fashioned or materialized his crucified form from the medium- 
istic emanations of those present in the room, and "showed 
them his hands and feet, and they handled them." Manifesta- 



WHAT SPIEITUALISTS BELIEVE. 317 

tioDs of this character are becoming more and more numerous 
every day among modern Spiritualists and mediums. 

Again, dnring his interview with the assembled twelve, he 
enjoined upon them to "go into all the world, and preach the 
gospel to every creature," promising them that they should be 
able to " cast out demons, speak with new tongues, lay hands 
on the sick and heal them, make the lame walk, the blind see, 
and deaf hear." And again, he said : " He that believeth on 
me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works 
shall he do ; because I go unto my Father." The Apostles 
personally addressed by Jesus were possessed of these gifts at 
the time of listening to him, hence the promise was designed, it 
is legitimate to conclude, for the benefit of future believers ; and 
where are those believers today, whom these signs follow, — 
and who are they ? Are they to be found among his professed 
followers in the evangelical churches, and are these orthodox 
brethren showing forth their faith in Jesus by the performance 
of such works as he promised should follow those who believe ? 
These works do not abound among the members of the orthodox 
churches, as we all know ; and hence all logical minds, reason- 
ing from a Biblical standpoint exclusively, are forced to the 
conclusion that these churches have departed from the "faith 
once delivered to the saints"; whilst the signs promised be- 
lievers do most certainly followmediumSyBjidi prevail everywhere 
among Spiritualists. And for this fact that they do, delicate 
women and high-toned men are to be arraigned before the courts 
of this Christian community as criminals. Nevertheless, these 
Spiritualists are undoubtedly acquiring daily a more correct 
conception and just appreciation of the true mission of Jesus, 
through the agency of these promised signs as they are now 
occurring. At the time the good man of Nazareth was upon 
the earth, those who occupied the highest seats of the synagogue 
were among the bitterest oppressors of those among whom these 
signs took place. The case is not dissimilar in the present day 
in this respect, as we all know. Nevertheless, mediums, I doubt 



318 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

not, will continue to act as mediators between the physically 
embodied and disembodied souls of men, whilst their powers will 
increase, let us hope, in the ratio of their appreciation of the high 
and holy duties of their mission. 

In this connection, permit me to remark in passing that I do 
not wish to be understood, in instituting the comparison just 
made, as seeking to detract from the true character of " the son 
of man," as Jesus is called eighty times in the New Testament; 
although we are undoubtedly taught by our spirit friends to 
reject the apotheosis adopted after his decease, — that is, his 
esi^ecial deification, — a dignity never really claimed by himself. 

The great truths to which I have adverted as a portion of the 
consolatory beliefs of the Spiritualist, that is, universal incarna- 
tion, and universal inspiration through the known fact of spirit 
communion, are being exemplified" in the present day in multi- 
plied and various modes of manifestation, existing, "like orient 
pearls," seemingly at random, yet with system strung. This 
fundamental fact of spirit communion, like unto the " still, small 
voice " at Horeb, was gentle and unassuming in its approach to 
the intelligence of the nineteenth century. Some few minds, 
owing to organizational conditions, early saw and appreciated 
the silver star of truth that shone in the hemisphere of thought 
above the infant fact and its lowly cradle at Hydesville, a fact 
infantile when considered in relation to human acceptance, but 
in and of itself as old as the eternal hills. The ideas of these 
early acceptors of this appeal to their inner consciousness through 
the medium of external senses began very soon to expand in 
the direction of spirit existence and spiritual truth, their thoughts 
grew broader, and their hopes grew brighter as they listened 
to the practical reiteration of the angel song at the dawning of 
the star of Bethlehem : '' Glory to God in the highest, on earth 
peace to all good-willing men," as the text should properly read. 
Their mental sky became clearer and fairer, whilst in the minds 
of the sincerely appreciative bigotry died at once, and sectarian- 
ism, struck as with a thunder-bolt of spiritual truth, breathed its 



WHAT SPIRITUALISTS BELIEVE. 319 

last. Loftier coDceptions of the Deity, as I have shown, dawned 
upon their interior consciousness, — a truer sense of the human 
soul and its possibilities was aroused, — whilst nobler purposes 
and higher hopes animated and adorned their lives. The earth 
grew fairer, the heavens brighter, and man's destiny more and 
more gloriously revealed as the echoing raps of the inner life 
rang out an angel chorus upon the anvil of time. The great 
fact grew apace in its influences, and in its extent, and before 
twelve years of recognition had passed, as during the first era, 
the logic of the schools was confounded, as previously statied, 
and doctors of divinity became alarmed for the safety of the 
scepter they had so long wielded. Dread theology, which, as 
says the poet, 

" Peopled earth with demons, hell with men, 
And Heaven with slaves," 

began to lose its power over the minds and consciences of man- 
kind. The dear old raps with other manifestations of spirit 
presence and spirit individuality began to be recognized as pages 
in a beautiful guide-book of the soul furnished by the angels, 
telling of the pathway arched with galaxies and paved with suns, 
through which the human soul shall pass to future beatitudes, 
and along which starry pathway, likewise, our own beloved and 
departed are constantly bearing messages of affection. In lieu 
of that terrible nightmare of the soul engendered by dreams of 
" total depravity," an '• angry God," an " eternal hell," and a 
*' ravenous devil," entailed from the gothic teachings of the past, 
hundreds of thousands of earth's children began joyously to 
recognize the Fatherhood of God, the motherhood of nature, 
and the brotherhood of man ; whilst rapturous hallelujahs echoed 
in their halls and homes, and hitherto doubting and desponding 
souls were practically humming the glorious anthem : — 

'* Let us banish sadness, 
Sing for very gladness, 
Our loved ones gone before are angels grown ; 



820 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

Come, wipe away all tears, 
And banish all our fears, 
For we shall know them all as we are known. 

In that sweet Summer-Land, 

On that bright, starry strand, 
Where winter ne'er shall chill the heart again, 

Our angels at their home, 

Will greet us when we come 
To join their happy life and sweet refrain." 

And at the present time as this great truth, first reaching the 
consciousness of the age through the material senses, is approach- 
ing the fortieth year of its practical recognition, still more 
demonstrable has become the glorious fact of spirit communion, 
the fundamental and unmistakable fact upon which is reared 
the superstructure of the philosophical beliefs of the Spiritualist, 
a portion of which only I have been able to touch upon. Still 
more numerous are becoming the various agencies of this con- 
nection, and still more satisfactory and beautiful the results of 
such angelic association. And still more consolatory and per- 
manent are our convictions with recurring demonstrations of 
the divinity and immortality of every human soul. Our philoso- 
phy, so grand and glorious, in harmony with the developments 
of science, is hourly enforcing the lesson that as, under deific 
potency, unintelligent force and inert matter, through all the 
long ages past, have been continuously waltzing hand in hand 
through the vast halls of nature, and today, after millions of 
years, are as fresh and active as ever, that infinite wisdom can- 
not have impeached and stultified itself by thus endowing these 
with untiring existence, and wholly disregarded the intelligent 
spirit ; that the Infinite Father cannot have thus preserved the 
atom and forgotten the soul ; but that just as surely as the 
acorn for tells the future unfolding of the life and beauty of the 
oak, just so surely the tangible injunctions of Spiritualism are 
persistently illustrating the fact that the soul of man, with all 
its expanding and aspiring capacities, foretells its own unend- 



WHAT SPIRITUALISTS BELIEVE. 321 

ing life, its own progressive growth and perfection, together 
with the perpetuity of its affections and its consciousness in the 
unappreciable eternities of the future. Under the influence of 
the indisputable facts and logical beliefs of this sadly misunder- 
stood system of Spiritualism, millions of human souls, instead of 
thousands, are today quaffing the sweet waters of this beautiful 
river of truth that is coursing so brightly through the gorges 
and over the valleys of time. In a million of human homes, on 
the opening of this new year, exists the actual demonstration of 
a future life ; and millions of human hearts are rejoicing with 
a most holy joy which naught earthly alone can give or talie 
away. For they have found, thank God, a fountain of living 
water in every desert of feeling, a sovereign balm for every 
wound, tranquility in every distress, and a pillow of down in 
every tempest through which the soul may be called to pass. 

Oh, then, my friends, on this our first meeting of the new 
year with 'all its impending possibilities, whilst we maintain un- 
falteringly the integrity of our phenomena, as Spiritualists let us 
resolve to cherish our beliefs more devotedly. Let us resolve, 
through deeper research and loftier aspirations, to cultivate more 
assiduously the glorious philosophy the angels have vouchsafed 
to us. Let us aim for a wider dissemination of its truths and 
its consolations. Let us chose teachers for their power of evolv- 
ing thought rather than for the ability to please the fancy or 
excite the wonder. Let the beautiful teachings of our religion 
enter into and guide our daily lives. Let its lessons be taught 
so as to attract the young and comfort the old alike. Let the 
poor find in it peace and consolation, whilst the rich, imbibing a 
higher sense of fraternal duty, may be able to participate in 
richer joys than wealth can give. Then, indeed, shall Spirit- 
ualism become what the angels so much desire, a beneficent 
power in the land, modifying all systems and reforming all 
practices that have hitherto proven detrimental to the happi- 
ness and well being of the race, whilst its glorious inculcations 



322 UNA]NSWEEABLE LOGIC. 

furnish continually an abiding rest for the weary, abundant 
consolation to the despondent, and for the thoughtful and aspir- 
ing a boundless field for both exploration and achievement in 
time, together with unappreciable beatitudes in the future, amid 
the unending and still increasing felicities of angel and archangel 
glory. 



LECTURE XVIII. 

SPIRITUALISM WITHOUT AN ADJECTIVE, 

The practice of using words which are intended to convey an 
impression contrary to that felt by a speaker or writer, — nay, 
more, the practice of using words that should naturally convey 
the intention of a speaker or writer when he knows that under 
existing circumstances they will not do so, — indeed, the forms of 
language in which one or more words or sentences bear the 
impress of some early and half-exploded theory at variance with 
the idea professedly sought to be conveyed can but be con- 
sidered reprehensible by the judicious thinker, since the tend- 
ency of such methods, either in books, in sermons, in essays, or 
in popular lectures, is to lead the investigator, especially if the 
subject matter under discussion be new and unfamiliar, into a 
realm of mist, escape from which is of ttimes exceedingly difficult. 
Very few, it is true, entertain clear conceptions of any one sub- 
ject, — no one, of course, of all, — and yet it is certainly within 
the reach of almost any man to know when he is clear and 
when he is hazy ; and to understand, at least, wherein lies the 
nature of reasoning in regard to the theme he seeks to dissect or 
delineate, as well as to the qualifying terms properly applicable 
to the same. 

With this brief introduction, allow me to present some of the 
reasons which impel me to utter a most emphatic dissent from 
the custom in vogue on the part of some of its advocates, of 
using qualifying adjectives in connection with the term Spirit- 

(323) 



324 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

ualism, which, to my mind, is an all-comprehensive theme, and 
an all-comprehensive system of truth, needing no adjective to 
convey the idea of its superlativeness, no qualifying term to 
secure its eventual acceptance. The more especially would 
I enter my protest against the term Christian Spiritualism, 
since the phrase is not only anomalous but contradictory, and 
calculated to mislead the general mind as to the teachings 
of the inestimable system we profess to revere. True, many 
persons claiming to be " Christian " Spiritualists may reserve 
to themselves a different signification to this adjective from 
what is given to it by the general mind, and from what legiti- 
mately attaches to it. True, likewise, a few of us may under- 
stand that those claiming the appellation satisfy their con- 
sciences by giving a most exalted definition to the term, and 
may indeed be aiming to become more and more Christ-like in 
their lives, and I am willing to accord to them all honesty of 
purpose and purity of conduct ; still, it is undoubtedly a fact 
that the term Christian, when applied to Spiritualism as a quali- 
fying adjective, is understood throughout Christendom as com- 
prehending many items of faith not necessary to that Christ-like 
integrity of character aspired to by those of whom I am speak- 
ing, and likewise many ecclesiastical dogmas utterly at variance 
with the system to which they inconsistently apply the qualify- 
ing term. Hence, the danger and almost certainty of convey- 
ing an erroneous impression to the investigating mind of what 
Spiritualism really is as a system of ethics. 

Among other appellations, the early followers of Christ were 
denominated Christians because they, like him, exercised spirit- 
ual gifts, Jesus having declared : '• He that believetli on me, 
the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works than 
these shall he do." If such was universally understood to be 
the signification attached to the word Christian in the present 
day, there might not be any especial objection to its being used 
as a qualifying prefix to the name of Spiritualism. But, even 
in that event, the adjective would be altogether superfluous, 



SPIRITUALISM WITHOUT AN ADJECTIVE. 325 

since the word Spiritualism itself, in the mighty scope of its 
practical application, covers the entire ground as to spiritual 
gifts. In our day, however, it is an undeniable fact that no 
such signification attaches to the word Christian, and not one in 
ten thousand so understands the term when used. On the con- 
trary, its meaning is narrowed down to, and is almost univers- 
ally accepted as consisting in, a belief in certain ecclesiastical 
dogmas, and in the observance of certain established church 
forms and ceremonies, independent of any consideration of prac- 
tical morality as a means of salvation, when disconnected with 
church polity. For, notwithstanding many church members 
are ignorant of the fact, and would really ignore any such idea 
as a portion of their personal belief, still it is a fact that most 
of the orthodox churches throughout Christendom decree the 
merely moral man to similar damnation with the vilest. And 
how terrible, especially in the earlier history of Christianity, 
after spiritual gifts had been lost sight of through the murky 
influences of ecclesiasticism, were the results of this adherence 
to theological dogma, in lieu of intellectual and spiritual culture ! 
Thomas Wentworth Hio;o;inson, a recoi^nized and most honor- 
able authority, from his historical researches declares the con- 
viction that "when Christianity had been five centuries in 
exercise, the only hope of the entire world seemed to be in the 
superior strength and purity of the pagan races. And at the 
end of the first thousand years Christianity could only show 
Europe at its lowest ebb of civilization, — in a state which 
Guizot calls ' death by the extinction of every faculty.' " The 
Roman Catholic Digby is quoted as saying : " The Church has 
always been accustomed to see genius and learning in the ranks 
opposed to her "; and the pious Melancthon as exclaiming : 
" Do we excel in intellect, in learning, in decency of morals ? 
By no means ; but we do excel in the true knowledge and wor- 
ship and adoration of God." In the present day the tenets of 
the Christian churches have been somewhat modified by the 
advancing spirit of the age outside of their borders ; and yet 



826 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

works clone without a^race meet with the condemnation of the 
Christian Church, however virtuous or philanthropic those works 
may be. In the "Articles of Religion " adopted by the Protest- 
ant Episcopal Church, we read : " Works done before the grace 
of Christ and the inspiration of his spirit are not pleasant to God, 
forasmuch as they spring not from faith in Jesus Christ, neither 
do they make men mete to receive grace ; . . . yea rather, . . . 
we doubt not but they have the nature of sin." And this is the 
purport of other orthodox Christian creeds, likewise. 

Again, we read in the same "Articles of Religion": "The 
condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot 
turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good 
works to faith and calling upon God." There is a similar 
declaration in the Methodist discipline. 

We further read in these "Articles of Religion ": " Predesti- 
nation to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before 
the foundations of the world were laid) He has constantly 
decreed by His counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and 
damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, 
and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels 
made to honor." Such is likewise the faith of the Presbyterian 
Church ; and these are some of the items of faith that consti- 
tute an orthodox Christian even in this day and generation. 

Touching the present idea entertained by orthodox Chris- 
tians in regard to the Infinite Source of all things, the following 
is an extract from what is called the Athanasian Creed, received 
by all evangelical Christians : — 

" Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy 
Ghost. 

" The Father is Almighty, the Son is Almighty, and the 
Holy Ghost is Almighty. 

" And, yet, there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. 

" He, therefore, that would be saved, must thus think of the 
Trinity." 

Evangelical Christians believe that God created Adam and 
Eve of the dust of the earth only about six thousand years since, 



SPIRITUALISM WITHOUT AIT ADJECTIVE. 327 

and placed them innocent and pure in a garden which he had 
" planted eastward in Eden "; that this pair were the parents 
of all the different races now on the face of the earth ; that the 
devil, or Satan, a mysterious, malignant, and seemingly all-pow- 
erful fiend, stole into this garden which God had provided for 
the happiness of his children, in the form of a serpent, and 
tempted these first parents into sin, — thus contravening the 
purposes of the Infinite Soul of the universe, and bringing about 
the most fearful consequences which fell upon all humanity in 
all after time. 

Evangelical Christians likewise believe that this malignant 
devil existed at one time as an angel of light, pure and beauti- 
ful, in the orthodox Kingdom of Heaven. That he was tempted 
into sin, and, raising a revolt, he assembled his adherents around 
him and declared war against God. According to Milton's 
account (which is believed by many to have its origin in the 
Bible) there were two days of fighting. The first day's battle 
was not conclusive, — Satan having used a weapon of destruction 
with which the warriors of heaven were not sufficiently well 
acquainted. In the second day's engagement, however, Satan 
and his hosts were overthrown for the want of sufficient force ; 
and were banished into outer darkness. That, beginning with 
Adam and Eve, as I have instanced, Satan has ever since been 
tempting men, women, and children into sin, contrary to the 
intercessions of Christ, and likewise contrary to the will of the 
Infinite God. And I may here remark, parenthetically, that he 
and his associates are supposed by some Christian believers to 
have been especially active at and since the dawn of Spiritualism. 

Evangelical Christians believe in the resurrection of these 
old, worn-out material bodies. They believe in a general judg- 
ment, to be held at some remote period: that this judgment is 
to be presided over by a personal God, seated upon a great white 
throne. They believe that at this general judgment the desti- 
nies of the race are to be settled for all eternity ; that a few, 
comparatively, saved in some mythical manner from ruin, are to 



828 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

become participants in an alleged heaven, the nature of which, 
considered in connection with the innate aspirations and the 
divine possibilities of the human soul, together with the natural 
pulsings of the human heart, would indicate but painful irony 
on the part of the Final Judge, whilst the destined fate of the 
majority according to this creed is to be incomprehensibly ter- 
rible, to be consigned to dwell forever amid fiends and devils, 
" all hope departed, all sympathy murdered in self-suffering, all 
aspirations dead, all consciousness absorbed in agony, all senses 
consolidated in one unending pain, all language drowned in one 
eternal damned shriek, every faculty of the soul concentrated 
into an everlasting sense of an ever-present hell of torture ! " 
And this is to be the fate of poor, blind, suffering, helpless, yet 
loving and trusting, human souls who dare to reject the teachings 
of evangelical Christianity. 

In this connection, I may state that the Rev. Mr. Jonathan 
Edwards, president of a theological college, and of course a recog- 
nized exponent of evangelical Christianity, in a sermon delivered 
by him, which is published for general distribution by the Phila- 
delphia Tract Society(Tract No 24), has the following declara- 
tion of Christian doctrine, — the sermon is addressed especially 
to sinners ; and the Christian minister thus declares : — 

" God holds you over the pit of hell, much in the same way as 
one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire. . . . 
The infinite might and majesty and terribleness of the omnipo- 
tent God shall be magnified upon you in the ineffable strength 
of your torments. . . . When you shall be in this state of suffer- 
ing, the glorious inhabitants of heaven shall go forth and look 
on the awful spectacle ; . . . and, when they have seen it, they 
will fall down and adore that great power and majesty." 

Again, Rev. J. S. Furnis, a British clergyman, has given the 
following description of hell,* as believed in by Christians, and 
as designed for the instruction of the young : — 

"We know," he says, "how far it is to the middle of the 
earth : it is just four thousand miles. So, if hell is in the mid- 
* Philadelphia Times, June 6, 1880. 



SPIRITUALISM WITHOUT AN ADJECTIVE. 329 

die of the earth, it is four thousand miles to the horrible prison 
of hell. Down in this place is a horrible noise. Listen to the 
tremendous, the horrible, uproar of millions and millions of tor- 
mented creatures, with the fury of hell ! Oh, the screams of 
fear, the groans of horror, the yells of rage, the cries of pain, 
the shouts of agony, the shrieks of despair, from millions on mil- 
lions ! There you hear them roaring like lions, hissing like ser- 
pents, howling like dogs, and wailing like dragons ! Above all 
you hear the roar of the thunders of God's anger, which shakes 
hell to its foundation. But there is another sound. There is 
in hell a sound like that of many waters. It is as if all the rivers 
and oceans of the world were pouring themselves with a great 
splash down on the floors of hell. Is it, then, really the sound 
of waters ? It is. Are the oceans and rivers of the earth pour- 
ing themselves into hell ? No. What is it, then ? It is the 
sound of oceans of tears running down from millions of eyes ! 
They cry forever and ever ! They cry because the sulphurous 
smoke torments their eyes ! They cry because they are in dark- 
ness ! They cry because they have lost the beautiful heaven ! 
They cry because the sharp fire burns them ! The roof is red 
hot ! The floor is like a sheet of red-hot iron ! " 

And, in order to further impress the horrors of this place of 
Christian invention upon the minds of the young, he adds: — 

"See, on the middle of that red-hot iron floor stands 2^ girl! 
She looks to be about sixteen years of age. She has neither 
shoes nor stockings on her feet. The door of this room has never 
been opened since she first set her foot on this red-hot floor ! 
Now she sees the opening. She rushes forward. She has gone 
down upon her knees upon this red-hot floor. Listen, — -she 
speaks. She says : ' I have been standing with my bare feet 
upon this red-hot floor for years ! Day and night my only stand- 
ing place has been on this red-hot floor ! Sleep may never come 
on me for a moment, that I may forget this horrible burning 
floor ! Look at my burnt and bleeding feet ! Let me go off 
this burning floor for one moment, — only for a short moment! 
Oh, that in this endless eternity of years I might forget the 
pain only for one single moment ! ' The devil answers her ques- 
tion ! ' Do you ask for a moment — for one moment — to forget 
your pain ? No, not for a single moment, during the never- 
ending eternity of years shall you ever leave this red-hot floor ! " 



830 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

I certainly am willing to acquit all Christian Spiritualists of a 
belief in such fearfully horrible doctrines. Then, in the name 
of all that is holy and beautiful, why adopt as a qualifying adjec- 
tive to Spiritualism the name of a system that in the remotest 
degree admits of such a doctrine among its tenets ? A doctrine, 
it must be admitted, libelous upon the character of God, and 
derogatory to the common sense and common sympathies of the 
nineteenth century ! 

Evangelical Christians believe that, in order to appease His 
own anger against his children, and to redeem them from the 
results of the disobedience of Adam and Eve, to which I have 
referred, the Almighty overshadowed a virgin, and made her 
the mother of Himself in another form, in order that He might 
become a propitiatory sacrifice unto Himself, in behalf of a fallen 
race, — a faith terminating with an account of the cruel cruci- 
fixion of the good man of Nazareth, and crowned with the 
barbaric invention of vicarious atonement ; and that even this 
Infinite sacrifice is not altogether effectual for the poor sinner 
without the adoption of certain items of faith, at which, like- 
wise, the human heart naturally shudders, and the observance of 
certain sacraments and ceremonies against which the human 
judgment revolts. 

Christians further believe, one branch of them, in the infal- 
libility of the Church and its human head, and the other in the 
infallibility of the Bible, even the King James version now in 
use, which is, acknowledgedly on the part of classical scholars, 
replete with errors, some few of which only have been expurgated 
by its recent revisers ; and, as a legitimate sequence, they believe 
this world was created in six solar days of twenty-four hours 
each ; that the sun, moon, and stars were created especially for 
the benefit of the earth ; that light existed before they were 
made ; that the sun revolves around the earth, instead of the 
reverse ; and that this sun stopped in its revolutions and stood 
still at the command of Joshua. They believe in the absurd 
account of a universal flood ; in the highly improbable story, to 



SPIEITUALISM WITHOUT AN ADJECTIVE. 331 

say the least, of God's bringing quails from the sea, and letting 
them fall about the Israelitish camp, "as it were a day's journey 
on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, 
and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth." 
They believe in the building of the Tower of Babel ; that the 
Lord " came down to see the city and the tower which the chil- 
dren of men builded"; and that "the Lord did there confound 
the language of all the earth." They believe in the Mosaic 
doctrine of " an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," and in 
persecution for opinion's sake. 

In connection with these items of Christian faith, founded 
upon the letter of the Old Testament, I may mention in passing 
that there were fifteen hundred books and pamphlets printed in 
Europe during the year 1875 to prove by the Bible that this 
earth of ours is flat ; and these fifteen hundred erudite produc- 
tions have been placed in the museum of the French Academy 
at Paris. 

Most of these items of faith of which I have spoken all evan- 
gelical Christians professedly believe together with some others, 
perhaps, that might be enumerated. Notwithstanding a professed 
unity of faith and purpose, for eighteen hundred years the domain 
of Christendom has been filled with the bitter hatred of Chris- 
tians, one for the other. Bloody wars have been waged, and 
millions of lives have been sacrificed, in endeavoring to establish 
the proper form in which the Supreme Being should be wor- 
shiped. The libraries of Berlin, of Vienna, of Paris, of London, 
of Oxford, and of the cities of Italy are groaning under the 
weight of folios written in regard to matters pertaining to what 
is called Christianity. A great deal of learning has been ex- 
pended in the past in the settlement of differences of opinion 
among the Christians as to individual preferences for this, that, 
and the other dogma ; and a great deal of controversy still pre- 
vails between Protestant and Catholic Christians, and likewise 
between the different sects of Protestantism. A discussion was 
held some years since between Archbishop Hughes, an eminent 



332 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC 

champion of Catholicism, and the Rev. Mr. Breckinridge, a no 
less able champion of Protestantism, as to the relative merits 
of the two respective systems ; and if both of these Christian 
gentlemen are to be credited as to the nature and character of 
the two great divisions of Christianity there is certainly but lit- 
tle cause for reverence in either, and surely nothing calculated 
to arouse a desire for the name of Christian as a qualifying 
term to any system, particularly to one that professedly deals 
with man's inner and higher nature. Said the Archbishop to 
Mr. Breckinridge, as may be seen in the published debate : " The 
Protestant rule of faith actually undermines the authority of the 
Scriptures by extinguishing the proofs of their authority and 
inspiration, and consequently terminates in moral suicide." To 
this Mr. Breckinridge replied: "Your rule, if observed, requires 
implicit faith in the decretals and interpretations of fallible 
men, which is subversive of the very nature and end of religion 
in the soul." So that, really, if the word Christian is to be 
adopted as qualifying the term Spiritualism, then a new con- 
struction of language must be resorted to, and some new phrase 
invented for the purpose of defining the true signification of the 
qualifying adjective, likewise, — since, as the poet Longfellow 
remarks : — 

"Lutheran, Popish, Calvinist, — all these creeds and doctrines three 
Extant are; but still the doubt is where Christianity may be." 

I am well aware that there are good men and women who 
are members of the various Christian Churches in the land who 
privately ignore some of the items of faith of which I have pre- 
sented as belonging to Christian creeds as too horrible for belief, 
and would unite with me in denouncing them as implying a libel 
upon divine love and infinite goodness. Nevertheless, they are 
part and parcel of " the confessions of faith," the " disciplines," 
and "articles of religion" of different evangelical Christian 
Churches ; and when persons announce themselves as Christians, 
they are understood almost universally to be believers in these 



SPIRITUALISM WITHOUT AN ADJECTIVE. 333 

dogmas ; and, if they do Dot believe them, they are certainly 
inconsistent in remaining; within the folds of the Church. If 
they express their doubts as to the efficacy of a belief in these 
dogmas for salvation a little too loudly, they are liable to be 
peremptorily dismissed from every orthodox Christian church 
in the land. I well recollect that a few years since members 
of the Unitarian, Universalist, and Swedenborgian churches, 
who ignore these fearful dogmas, were refused membership in 
the Young Men's Christian Association on the ground that they 
were not orthodox, — in other words, were not Christians. 

In the name of all that is truthful and beautiful, then, I would 
inquire, what relevancy has the term " Christian " (with the 
signification properly or even remotely belonging to it) to Spir- 
itualism that it should be applied as its qualifying or descriptive 
adjective ? Spiritualism rejects and utterly ignores most, if not 
all, of these items of faith to which I have referred as eminently 
Christian, and I have not intentionally misstated a single item. 
The phenomena of Spiritualism, uj^on which are based its philo- 
sophical deductions, most emphatically contradict almost the 
entire array of Christian dogma. The declarations of the one 
are the exact antipodes of the assumptions of the other. In 
what sense, therefore, and with what propriety can they be con- 
joined as conveying the idea of unity of thought and action 
when they are so absolutely disjoined, both as to the congenial- 
ity of sentiment in time and harmony of ideas as to the destiny 
of man in the future ? — the definition of the qualifying adjective 
is so destructive in its tendency of the true meaning of the noun 
sought to be qualified that the phrase " Christian Spiritualism " 
becomes wholly unintelligible, and altogether unworthy the 
adoption of the philosophical thinker. 

I am well aware that there are those who use this phrase as 
applicable to themselves, intending no such signification to the 
word Christian as I have given, although legitimately belonging 
thereto, but who desire to be understood, when claiming to be 
" Christian Spiritualists," as conveying the idea that they are 



334 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

striving to become like unto Christ ; and that Spiritualism cor- 
responds, in its presentations of today, to the manifestations of 
Christianity at its dawn. That there is a striking analogy be- 
tween the facts of Spiritualism and the facts of both the Old and 
the New Testament, I have no hesitancy in affirming, and, as 
I have said, I do not desire to cast a doubt upon any claim to 
integrity and purity on the part of " Christian Spiritualists " as. 
individuals ; nor would I seek to disparage any code of morals 
attributed to the good man of Galilee ; but, at the same time, 
I must still object to the use of the tqrm " Christian " as a quali- 
fying adjective to Spiritualism, because, however different may 
be the intention or the desire of the parties using it in this con- 
nection, I think it cannot be denied that it is at least highly 
probable that the general mind will receive it in its doctrinal as 
well as its moral sense, and not simply in its personal applica- 
tion to Jesus ; and should any mind thus interpreting this famil- 
iar adjective, and with the hope of adding some new thought in 
harmony with the list of his long-cherished religious beliefs, 
undertake the investigation of Spiritualism, we all know that 
he is destined to find himself deceived in fact, although not per- 
haps in the intention of the party using the questionable term. 
We all know that the continued investigation of this theme by 
a mind thus attracted to it, without previous correct informa- 
tion as to the tendency of its ethics, must lead to mental torture, 
since Spiritualism breaks to pieces all the Christian idols of 
wood and of stone, of books and of dogmas, substituting there- 
for the glorious conception, to us, of the soul's reliance upon 
itself as God's revelator of truth, and upon a demonstrated im- 
mortality as the fundamental basis of true devotion and progress. 
And should he be unprepared for the reception of these higher 
truths, as is altogether probable with a mind entering into the 
investigation under the circumstances adverted to, may he not, 
and with justice, too, charge the spiritual school with attempting 
to gain proselytes under false pretences ? Or, should he uncom- 
plainingly decide to remain amongst us, still the question recurs : 



SPIRITUALISM WITHOUT AN ADJECTIVE. 335 

Is it right thus to deceive, though it be but by implication on 
our part, and although the error may be said to be self-imposed 
by the investigator himself ? 

I protest against the use of this adjective as a qualifying pre- 
fix to Spiritualism for the additional reason that it is partially, at 
the least, a practical recognition on the part of those who thus 
use it of the general assumption in Christendom that Chris- 
tianity is the chief source and preserver of all the virtues that 
adorn humanity. The prevalent theory in Christendom is that ■ 
ail the virtues, all the morality, all the integrity, and well nigh 
all the civilization upon our planet, have their foundation in the 
New Testament, and that these virtues are to be found in prac- 
tical operation chiefly among professing Christians ; that the 
man unregenerated by or through the Christian system is fit 
only to be damned. And I fear tacit countenance is given to 
the ecclesiastical arrogance of the age in this direction when we 
assume the use of the name of Christian as a qualifying adjec- 
tive, and as a sort of apology on our part for the introduction 
of the noun Spiritualism into the religious literature of the 
present age. 

The fact is, however, that all the virtues which adorn our race 
were in practical operation among the Greeks and Romans, as 
well as other pagan nations, and the doctrines of the brother- 
hood of man, the Fatherhood of God, and the immortality of the 
race were all taught before the Galilean carpenter was born. 
Then, why the assumption that all the virtues and moral qualities 
of humanity are peculiarly Christian ? And why should Spirit- 
ualists give their assent to such ecclesiastical arrrogance by what 
the Christians themselves might term a surreptitious use of their 
distinctive appellation ? 

During the period which elapsed between the introduction of 
the tenets of the ancient philosophy of the Stoics into Rome 
and the ascendency of Christianity, Leckey tells us an impor- 
tant transformation of moral ideas had been effected under the 
influence of these tenets ; and it has been a question among the 



836 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

best philosophic observers of the past whether, after their intro- 
duction, the new elements of the Christian religion coalesced 
favorably with the exalted idea of the stoical school, or was by 
any means an improvement thereon. These changes in the gen- 
eral mind prior to the introduction of Christianity consisted, he 
says, in an increasing prominence of the benevolent and amiable 
qualities as distinguished from the heroic, which had previously 
been the characteristic of the old Roman, and of the enlarge- 
ment of the moral qualities generally. They originated in the 
Roman empire at the time when the union of the Greek and 
Roman civilizations was effected by the conquest of the former 
country, — the refining influence of the arts and literature of 
Greece, their ignorance of gladiatorial games, and their com- 
parative freedom from the spirit of conquest having tended very 
much to their elevation, and in giving a peculiar purity and 
tenderness to their ideal characters. 

Pericles, when the friends had gathered around his death- 
bed, and imagining him to be insensible, were recounting his 
splendid deeds, told them that they had forgotten his best title 
to fame, that no Athenian had ever worn mourning on his 
account; Aristides, praying the gods that those who had ban- 
ished him might never be compelled by danger or suffering to 
recall him ; Phocion, when unjustly condemned, exhorting his 
son never to avenge his death, — all represent a character mild 
and beautiful, and which in the present day is claimed as peculi- 
arly Christian. The plays of Euripides gave to the ancient 
world great revelations of the supreme beauty of the gentler 
virtues ; whilst in his pious exclamation, 

" Thou self-sprung being that doth all enfold, 
And in thine arms Heaven's whirling fabric hold," 

bespeaks the recognition on the part of this heathen poet of the 
general providence of one Supreme Being as emphatically as he 
is recognized or appreciated in the Jewish record. Antipha- 
nes, centuries before the dawn of Christianity, taught the per- 
petuity of existence beyond the grave in his exhortation : — 



SPIRITUALISM WITHOUT AN ADJECTIVE. 337 

" Cease, mourners, cease complaint, and weep no more, 
Your dead friends are not lost, but gone before ; 
Advanced a state or two upon the road 
Which you must travel in the steps they 've trod ; 
In the same realm we all shall meet at last. 
Then, take new life, and laugh at sorrows past." 

In illustration of these facts, among the forms of worship 
that flourished at Athens, there was one altar, the historians 
further tell us, that stood alone, conspicuous, and honored above 
all others. Supplicants thronged around it daily ; but no 
image of a god, no symbol of dogma, was there. This altar was 
dedicated to Pity, and was reverenced through all the ancient 
world as an emphatic assertion among mankind of the supreme 
sanctity of mercy. So much respected was this altar that 
when under certain influences an attempt was made to intro- 
duce the gladiatorial games into Athens, it was prevented by an 
appeal of a philosopher to the people exclaiming : " You must first 
overthrow the altar to Pity." In view of the pugilistic rings and 
personal conflicts that disgrace our land, we may not inappro- 
priately pray for the revival of Greek morality, and for the 
erection of an altar to. Pity in every city and town throughout 
the domain of Christendom. In the philosophy of Cato and 
Cicero virtue was displayed almost exclusively in action. Among 
the Stoics, indeed, history tells us, self-examination and purity 
of thought were contiually inculcated. The letters of Seneca 
have been pronounced by the ablest thinkers a kind of moral 
medicine applied to the cure of different infirmities of character. 
Epictetus urged men to purify their thoughts ; and in the medi- 
tations of Marcus Aurelius the duty of watching over the 
thoughts is continually inculcated. The perfection of the char- 
acter of Marcus Aurelius, historians affirm, was such as to awe 
even calumny into silence. In his intercourse with others he 
carried farther the rare virtue of what are called "little things" 
than is done in Christendom today, except by the smallest 
minority, — that delicate moral tact, and those minute scruples, 



838 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

which, though at times exhibited by women, in men very rarely 
survive much contact with active life. In fine, historians agree 
in the statement that " the recognized standard of reformation 
was personal character, not blood or lineage," or wealth, or offi- 
cial preferment, in the estimation of Greece and Rome, before 
the Nazarene was born ; and the wisdom of the ancient world 
had placed "all races of men everywhere upon one broad level 
of moral equality " long before John found it necessary to enjoin 
upon his turbulent brethren that they should " love one another." 

Again, as to the claim urged for the originality and exclusive 
worth of Christian morals, I may add that the Rev. Edward C. 
Towne asserts as follows : " Current Christianity is a fabric more 
of fiction then of fact. For instance, Jesus was not the original 
author of anything contained in the Sermon on the Mount. That 
discourse was perfectly familiar in the streets of Jerusalem before 
it was delivered by Jesus ! " 

The golden rule, likewise, of doing unto others as ye would 
that they should do unto you, many of you, doubtless, recollect 
hearing attributed to Jesus as a remarkable evidence of his 
divine character; and yet it is now a well-known fact that the sen- 
timent was uttered five hundred years before the birth of Jesus 
by the Chinese philosopher Confucius. Nor was it claimed as 
original even with him, but attributed to " the Fathers." 

In view of such considerations, then, as I have referred to, as 
well as other reasons which might be cited, did time permit, 
why should Spiritualists use the adjective Christian in the con- 
nection of which I have been speaking, even in its mildest sig- 
nification, unless it be as a sort of quasi apology to the popular 
ideas of Christendom for presuming to profess ourselves Spirit- 
ualists, and yet hoping to be esteemed proper members of soci- 
ety ? Such a puerile motive, however, I would attribute to no 
one. Let us hope that this inexplicable association of names 
has simply grown into use from want of thought, — from a want 
of consideration as to the true signification of words. And, on 
the other hand, let us ever bear in mind that Spiritualism needs 



SPIEITUALISM WITHOUT AN ADJECTIVE. 339 

no surplusage of words, no adjectives or superlatives, to add to 
the certaiDty of its facts, the beauty of its conceptions, or the 
solidarity of its teachings. And rest assured that Spiritualism, 
fer se, without the aid of any factitious appellation, is destined 
eventually to 

"Weave itself a rainbow round the Sun, 
And clasp its thought a girdle round the world.'* 



LECTURE XIX. 

CHRISTMAS AND ITS SUGGESTIONS. 

The retarn of Christmas with each successive year is hailed 
as a day of rejoicing by most nations, but in the present age 
more especially in Christendom. 

The 25th of December, as you are aware, is celebrated as the 
birthday of Jesus of Nazareth, the reputed savior of the world, 
by the decoration of Christian churches with evergreens, and in 
the exercise of ceremonials deemed appropriate to the occasion ; 
whilst among all classes the happy countenances and joyous 
laughter of children, on the receipt of numerous presents, con- 
stitute the most beautiful feature of this annual festival. 

The first suggestion which Christmas presents, to the minds 
of children at least, as well as to the lovers of children, doubt- 
less, is the name of the venerable Santa Claus. Yet, many are 
ignorant of the origin of this benevolent gentleman, which was 
less ancient than the festival which is said to keep him so busily 
employed. His history, however, goes back to what may be 
termed ancient times ; and, like many other histories, is a sin- 
gular mixture of truth and fable. Between four and five hun- 
dred years later than the reputed birth of Jesus, a child named 
Nicholas was born at Panthera, in Asia Minor ; his parents, 
who were rich and of high rank, were converts to Christianity. 
This son was born to them many years after their marriage, and, 
as a sequence, they superstitiously received him as an answer to 
their prayers. By way of expressing their gratitude, they had 

(340) 



CHEISTMAS AND ITS SUGGESTIONS. 341 

him educated for the Christian priesthood. Before he was of 
age, both parents died of the plague, and he became the inher- 
itor of great wealth. Partly from natural tenderness and benevo- 
lence of heart, and partly from the training he had received, he 
did not consider the riches bequeathed him as his own, but as a 
sacred trust placed in his hands by the Giver of all Good. He 
fed the hungry, clothed the naked, redeemed slaves, endowed 
poor maidens with marriage portions, supported and educated 
destitute orphans, and performed all manner of charitable works 
as secretly as possible. As a priest, history tells us further, he 
was greatly beloved and reverenced by the poor ; and, when he 
became a bishop, he continued to be as humble, self-denying, 
and benevolent as ever. After his death, the Church canonized 
him, and he became one of the most revered patron saints in 
Italy, and likewise in various northern nations ; and was every- 
where reverenced as the helper of the poor, and as the protector 
of the weak against the strong. St. George was esteemed the 
patron saint of knights and gentlemen in Europe, but St. Nicho- 
las was the patron saint of the poor and weak, of serfs and pris- 
oners, and especially of little children, who were always taught 
to believe that all their good gifts came from him. The unedu- 
cated have believed many wonderful stories concerning him. It 
is related, for instance, that, on the first day of his life, he stood 
up straight in his bath, folded his little hands, and audibly 
thanked God that he was born into the world. During his 
infancy, it was more the custom than now for members of the 
Church to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays ; and so scrupulous 
was this baby saint, it is declared, that he invariably refused to 
take his mother's milk more than once on these days. It is 
recorded also that a word from his mouth, upon a certain occa- 
sion, stilled a raging tempest at sea, and saved the lives of 
many sailors ; also, that his prayers cured the sick, and restored 
three murdered boys to life. The Italian monks called him 
Santo Nicolaus. The natural tendency to clip familiar words 



842 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

changed this to Santo Niclaus, and gradually in time to Santa 
Claus^ as your children now call him. 

But there are other considerations suggested by the return of 
Christmas worthy the attention of grown-up boys and girls, — 
eminently worthy the attention of thinkers, — to which, for our 
mutual instruction, allow me to call your attention, however 
much what I shall present may differ from some of your precon- 
ceived ideas. 

Christmas, as, of course, you are aware, is the anniversary of 
the reputed birthday of Jesus of Nazareth, who is declared to 
have been the founder of Christianity. But, after a careful 
perusal of the history of the first century of the Christian era, 
it is equally as difficult to find traces in the Protestant hierarchy 
of today of the early spirituality of this system, said to have 
been inculcated and practiced by Jesus and his Apostles, as it is 
to discover the same in the oligarchy of the mother Church, 
although the one professes to be the protest of reason and con- 
science against the alleged abuses of the other. From the teach- 
ings of either school, indeed, it is well nigh impossible to form 
an exact idea of the nature of the faith which Jesus intended to 
introduce. Christianity, nevertheless, is loudly proclaimed as 
having regenerated the world — or surely will do so ; and, 
in the face of reason and of history, is pronounced to be the 
life of morality and the basis of civilization. Yet, if it is asked, 
what is Christianity ? few, even in this ostensibly Christian land, 
will give the same answer. Every one means by the term 
Christian the religious ideal of his or her own mind, which 
would indeed be well enough if these individual ideas were not 
so dogmatically heralded as the infallible will of heaven ; and 
all dissenting therefrom consigned to irremediable woe. The 
question is generally answered among the clergy by arbitrary 
assumptions, or by random appeals to isolated texts of Scripture. 
Some contend that Christianity consists in faith ; others that it 
is manifest only in works. Some consider Christianity to be an 
avoidance of the results of the reputed fall of man, and a recon- 



CHRISTMAS AKD ITS SUGGESTIONS. 343 

ciling of God to the world, through the sacrifice of His Son, 
whom, strangely enough, they declare to be, at the same time, 
the very God himself. In fact, since the days of the ancient 
Gnostics down to the present hour, Christianity has been under- 
going definitions which have been, and are, equally metaphysical, 
and as difficult of comprehension as the original proposition 
itself. Spiritualism, however, repudiates doctrinal Christianity 
entirely when considered as a perfected system, than which 
there is none other ; and in lieu thereof contends that true relig- 
ion consists in reconciling man to himself, and to his own con- 
science, enabling him to discard all mythic fancies of past ages, 
which confounding error and imperfection with superstition and 
sin tend to crush out all human hope and human energy, under 
the conviction of a totally depraved nature. And surely the mind 
of the present age is as fully competent to judge as to the innate 
tendencies of the race, and the supposed dealings of God with 
His children, as were those of a darker period in the world's 
history, to whom, it is said, we of today are indebted for the 
infallible will of ^ heaven. 

In what manner, and by what means, has this infallible will 
reached us ? Jesus himself did not write, nor did he inculcate 
any new system of doctrine ; although, perhaps, a new feeling 
and a new spirit were engendered by his living example. His 
immediate apostles preached, but did not write ; and the best 
authorities declare that the literary efforts ascribed to them have 
no claim to be considered genuine. An able writer upon " the 
Rise and Progress of Christianity"^ says that the earliest his- 
torical Christian literature consisted of records of Christ's sayings 
or discourses ; that these were translated and variously ehlarged 
into narratives, including time, place, and circumstance, until 
out of many varying forms, comprehended under the general 
term of a " Gospel of the Hebrews," one was selected, and, with 
several concessions to Pauline theology, was constructed into 
the present " Book according to Matthew." Mark's Gospel is 

* Robert William Mackay, pp. 6, 7, 8. 



844 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

admittedly a derivative one. Luke (if he wrote the Gospel attrib- 
uted to him) himself admits that he was far from being one of 
the earliest compilers of a Gospel narrative ; and, moreover, he 
frequently borrows from Matthew. The fourth Gospel differs 
widely from the other Gospels, which, indeed, it often contradicts ; 
and John's reputed authorship of it ill accords with his having 
written a book so dissimilar in spirit as is the " Book of Reve- 
lation." Most of the Epistles, likewise, are considered ques- 
tionable ; and, indeed, one learned writer* asserts that, with 
the exception of the genuine Epistles of Paul, which are supposed 
to be the Epistle to the Romans, the two Epistles to the Corinth- 
ians, and the Epistle to the Galatians, all the New Testament 
writings are more or less suspicious ; whilst another able writer f 
has unanswerably proven that the matter of the Gospel is wholly 
unhistorical, that the events recorded either happened not at all, 
or not in the way supposed. In fine, it is declared $ that the 
Fathers to whom the present generation is indebted for the selec- 
tion of the canonical books of the New Testament were " immod- 
erately credulous and indiscriminating, and forfeited almost all 
claim to literary authority." 

In connection with such facts as these, and their relation to 
the claim of infallibility on the part of the system celebrating 
Christmas as the birthday of its founder, is it not far more 
rational to conclude, as Spiritualism asserts, that the soul of 
today knows best the needs of today ; and can best define for 
itself as to God's inspiration, or the assumed revelations of the 
past? 

Christianity, however, in its inception, I can readily believe, 
was beautifully adapted in its Spiritualistic facts and the legiti- 
mate deductions therefrom to the existing needs of humanity, 
being what has been termed a religious revival, founded on 
human feeling and human aspiration. It appealed originally to 
the soul and its conceptions. " The soul's asylum was itself," 
as is now claimed in the inculcations of Spiritualism. Within 
*DeWette. t Strauss. jMackay. 



CHRISTMAS AND ITS SUGGESTIONS. 345 

the earlier teachings of this system, properly understood, was to 
be found the gratification of a universal desire, the anxiously 
sought goal of heathen philosophy, as well as the dream of Jew- 
ish aspiration, viz., religion, or the basic foundation of religion, 
angelic intercourse, and a recognition of the innate divinity of 
the race. The ideal conception of deity to the more spiritually 
minded was at first subjective ; but the materialism of the 
age and the natural tendency of the general mind from past 
inculcation' and association required a more objective realiza- 
tion of the incipient yet earnest longing of the soul for the 
exercise of the devotional element within. The consequent 
especial individualization of the Infinite, therefore, in the per- 
son of Jesus of Nazareth, although puerile and absurd, as well 
as of pagan origin, was perhaps but a natural and legitimate 
sequence ; and from this circumscribed conception of the great 
Father Soul of the universe, as legitimately arose the entire 
system of creeds, dogmas, and ceremonies that to the aspiring 
mind of today are so utterly useless and altogether objection- 
able. In harmony with this apotheosis of the Galilean carpen- 
ter, and with the view of proselyting all nations if possible, 
the early Church likewise adopted various favorite festivals 
existing in the ancient world, and allowed their converts of all 
nations to retain their old customs, baptizing them with new 
names, having direct reference to Christian dogmas and sacra- 
ments. In allusion to this process and facility of adoption, on 
the part of the Christian Fathers, of the antecedent customs by 
which the age was characterized, Mosheim, who is acknowl- 
edged Protestant authority, says : " It is difficult to determine 
whether the heathen were most Christianized or the Christians 
most heathenized." Under the light of the present age of spir- 
itual and intellectual progress, however, it is no difficult task 
to recognize the fact that most of the customs and ceremonies 
of orthodox Christianity, as well as of its dogmas, are, as I have 
stated, of direct heathen origin. The more especially is this 
observable in the history of the Church after the crimson-handed 



846 UNAESWEKABLE LOGIC. 

Emperor Constantine had made Christianity the established 
religion of the State. This Constantine, whom I have termed 
*' crimson-handed," was the first Christian emperor, and the 
founder of that despicable anti-republican system of government, 
— the union of Church and State ; and I find certain incidents of 
his life among the suggestions aroused in my mind by the recur- 
rence of Christmas. Constantine presided over, and very de- 
cidedly influenced the proceedings of the celebrated council of 
Nice, which sat during the winter of A. D. 325-6 ; and which 
declared the consubstantiality or equality of Jesus of Nazareth 
with the Father of the universe. During the year this Chris- 
tian emperor presided over the council referred to, and some 
ten or fifteen years previous (according to the authority of 
Eusebius, Rev. Robert Taylor, Dr. Lardner, Socrates' Ecclesias- 
tical History, and others), he committed the following deliberate 
murders : — 

A. D. 

310. Maximian, his wife's father. 

314. Bassianas, his sister Anastasia's husband. 

319. Sicinianus, son of his sister Constantia. 

320. Fausta, his wife (drowned in a bath of boiling water). 

321. Sopater, a pagan priest, and his former friend. 

325. Sicinius, his sister Constantia's husband. 

326. Crispus, his own son. 

According to the authorities to which I have referred, Con- 
stantine applied to Sopater (the pagan priest named as one of 
the last three put to death) for spiritual consolation after the 
murder of the first four referred to. The honest pagan priest 
refused to administer any, declaring that the purity of the gods 
admitted of no compromise with crimes like his. Whereupon, 
he applied to the Christian bishops, who promised him that " by 
repentance and baptism they could cleanse him from all sin.'' 
And in the present day a similar procedure too frequently pre- 
vails under the same ecclesiastical system when a prisoner is exe- 



CHRISTMAS AND ITS SUGGESTIONS. 347 

cuted through the barbarous and unrighteous laws prevailing in 
our land as to capital punishment. The murderer, no matter 
how unprovoked and cruel the deed, after a brief repentance is 
swung from the gallows direct into heaven, whilst his victim 
by the same Christian teachings, if unchanged, is being tortured 
in hell, and two innocent families, perhaps, consigned to dis- 
grace and want in this our land of Christian laws. Christian 
justice, and Christian charity. The fact is, as I conceive, that 
our whole system of jurisprudence in this respect is wrong. 
Copied from the Mosaic code of an " eye for an eye, and a 
tooth for a tooth," nothing but error and desolation follow in its 
wake. When, however, the spiritual nature and spiritual des- 
tiny of our race shall be better understood, it will be recognized 
that hanging is the very worst use that can be made of an evil- 
disposed person, since you do not thereby necessarily free the 
community from his influence ; and hence our system of judicial 
murder should be entirely abolished, and the mode of punish- 
ment adopted in lieu thereof be entirely reformatory in its char- 
acter, whilst the murderer and all others should be taught the 
important lesson that a continuance in good deeds rather than 
blind faith in a vicarious atonement is the surest guarantee of 
future happiness here and hereafter. 

But, to continue. After his conversion to Christianity, Con- 
stantine took care to have the good pagan priest put to death, 
as I have stated ; and also his nephew and his own son. 

Previous to his conversion to Christianity, the emperor Con- 
stantino had been for forty years a worshiper of Apollo, the 
heathen God of the sun, whom he regarded as his tutelary deity, 
— his own especial guardian and benefactor. One of the earli- 
est acts of his reign, after the union of Church and State under 
his influence, was to require the universal observance of the 
sun's day ; for which purpose he issued a proclamation in these 
words : " Let all the people rest on the venerated day of the 
sun." Saturday, you know, was and is the Sabbath of the 
Jews, said to have been appointed by Jehovah ; and converts 



348 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

from Judaism to Christianity long continued to observe the 
seventh day as their Sabbath. Gentile Christians, however, 
were accustomed to meet together on the first day of the week, 
in commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus; and as that 
custom harmonized with the proclamation of the emperor, and 
likewise with Grecian and Roman worship, the Sabbath of the 
Apostles was superceded by Sun-day ; for the non-observance 
of which, most orthodox clergymen will tell you, you are to be 
damned. 

Another suggestion at this Christmas season is the fact that 
festival days were endeared to the people by long habit, were 
generally retained by the Christian Church, though they en- 
deavored in each case to adapt old forms and customs to the new 
ideas then coming into prominence. For instance, in the ancient 
world the custom of performing religious ceremonies in honor 
of departed ancestors was well nigh universal. This custom 
was perpetuated by the Catholic Church, even down to the pres- 
ent day under the name of All Souls' Day. And the day kept 
by the ancient Romans in honor of their departed heroes and 
benefactors was transferred to the honor of Christian martyrs, 
under the name of All Saints' Day. Two years since, in Pere la 
Chaise, Paris, at the Campo Santo of Genoa, and of Pisa, and 
also upon the monuments of Rome, I witnessed many beautiful 
evidences of affection and veneration for the departed exhibited 
through these ancient customs, as still perpetuated in Catholic 
countries, — none the less beautiful because of pagan origin. 
But why not allow the origin to be generally known ? 

The carnival celebration, and the fast of Lent, are likewise 
among the customs borrowed from the pagan world, and ob- 
served professedly by the Catholic Church, the Church of Eng- 
land, and the Protestant Episcopal Church of America, as 
especial Christian duties. The word " carnival " means simply 
" farewell to flesh." It is observed, especially in Catholic sec- 
tions, as a day of great feasting and frolicking, as you are 
aware, immediately preceding Lent, which is the period when 



CHRISTMAS ANT) ITS SUGGESTIONS. 349 

the eating of meat is forbidden for forty days, according to the 
teachings of the Churches named. The carnival, however, is in 
fact but a revival of the old Roman Saturnalia. The early 
Romans believed that in some golden time, ages before the 
period of their existence, the heathen god Saturn lived upon 
the earth and abode in Italy, ruling the people of that country 
as their king ; that during that time there were no rich and no 
poor ; that there was no sickness, no sorrow ; that there was 
neither trouble nor labor ; that there was a grand period of 
human brotherhood, with no high, no low, each serving each, 
and all living happily together. During the Roman Saturnalia, 
which was held in commemoration of this golden period, the 
people lived over again, for a few days, this old ideal time. 
The servants sat at the board while master and mistress waited 
upon them, thus bringing to memory the time when there was no 
distinction of great and small. The carnival is simply the old 
Roman Saturnalia somewhat modified, adopted by the early 
Church on account of its popularity among the people, and bap- 
tized under another name. It is observed at New Orleans annu- 
ally with much jollity, and with great practical freedom to all 
classes of society. It is likewise observed in San Francisco. 

The term Lent is derived from an old Anglo-Saxon word, 
which refers to the lengthening of days in spring. The word, 
then, of course, simply indicates the time of the year when the 
fast is held, — beginning with Ash Wednesday and closing with 
Easter. The Catholic Church claims this feast as an original 
and obligatory custom of the Church instituted by the Apostles 
themselves. This claim, however, is denied by the Protestant 
Churches generally, and, I doubt not, with correctness, as it is 
difficult to present proof substantiating the assumption. This 
fast existed in the Catholic Church as early as A.D. 250. At first 
it was a fast of thirty-six days only ; but after a short time the 
number forty was assumed, and has been retained ever since. 
It is alleged, of course, that the first idea connected with the 
use of this number " forty," as the duration of the yearly fast, 



850 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

was derived from the supposed forty days' fast of Jesus in the 
wilderness ; but it is observable all throughout the Bible that 
there seems to be a peculiar significance attached to the num- 
ber forty, or rather to the number four and its multiples. You 
can readily recall, doubtless, the declaration that the Israelites 
were forty days on their journey from Egypt to Canaan ; Moses 
was forty days on the mountain, receiving the law ; Elijah 
fasted forty days in the desert ; Jesus fasted forty days preced- 
ing his temptation, and he is supposed to have been with the 
disciples forty days after the resurrection, and before the ascen- 
sion. There is, however, a significant fact in this connection 
disclosed through archaeological investigation. The number four 
and its multiples have been used as significant or sacred numbers 
not only through the Bible but in well nigh all the primitive 
religions of the world. And this fact, it is alleged, has been 
traced beyond question to the belief that prevailed early in 
human history, that the earth upon which we dwell was square ; 
and that at the four points of the compass, north, south, east, 
and west, were the homes of the four great gods of the winds. 
The winds being considered as connected with the clouds, with 
atmospheric conditions, with the changes of the seasons, and hence 
with the development and fruitfulness of life on the globe, these 
four gods of the winds were regarded as thechief deities among 
most of the early religions of mankind. And, hence, a portion 
of the reverence entertained for the number four and its 
multiples. 

Another fact in history in this connection should likewise be 
better known. The cross, considered by so many as peculiarly 
a Christian symbol, antedates the Church by many centuries. 
It is found all over the world well nigh ; and its origin has been 
decided as follows : the conjunction of two sticks at right 
angles across each other represent the four gods of the winds, 
as they are supposed to be pointing to their abodes. The cross 
existed as a religious emblem among the early Romans, and was 
esteemed one of the most sacred symbols in almost all the early 



CHRISTMAS AND ITS SUGGESTIONS. 351 

religions of the world, long, very long before its adoption as an 
emblem of the faith of the Christian. Besides, most of the 
grand religious edifices reared in the twilight of the past were 
constructed upon this idea, carrying out this peculiar concep- 
tion as to form. And, hence, it is appropriately assumed that, 
instead of being projected by the Apostles, the idea of forty 
days, the multiple of four, as the duration of Lent, has its origin 
far back in the earliest and crudest religious conceptions of 
humanity. 

There is still another significant and peculiar fact suggested 
concerning the practice of keeping Lent and other fast days 
that should be more generally understood. The Catholic Church, 
and to some extent the Protestant Churches, prohibit the use 
of meat on Friday, the weekly fast, and through Lent, but 
allow the use of fish ad libitum. The observance of Friday as 
a fast day, as you are aware, is designed, by the Catholic 
Church especially, to keep in perpetual remembrance the idea 
that on that day of the week the crucifixion of Jesus is said to 
have taken place. But why the eating of fish is allowed to the 
exclusion of all other meats is not so generally known. The 
Church fails to explain the reason. History furnishes it, how- 
ever, together with many other truths of the past, a knowl- 
edge of which, it appears to me, must eventually result in 
demolishing that ecclesiastical dogmatism that has so long 
held sway throughout the length and breadth of Christendom. 
Whence, then, came the idea of eating fish on Friday ? There 
is no trace whatever of its orio^in in Christendom, no orio-inal 
habit, teaching, or precept with regard to it in Christianity. It 
was derived in this wise : Friday, in the old pagan religions, 
was ^Wa'5-day, and Fria was a Teutonic goddess, correspond- 
ing to the Roman Venus and the Greek Aphrodite, the goddess 
of love ; and fish from time immemorial had been regarded as 
peculiarly her emblem, and sacred to her use. Hence, the old 
pagans always ate fish on i<Vm'5-day, in honor of their goddess. 
When the early Christian Church adopted Fria's-dnj, or Fi'iday, 



352 u:n^answerable logic. 

as a fast day, in commemoration of the crucifixion, forbidding 
the use of meat, the ancient custom of eating fish on that day 
was adopted in order that the prejudices of the pagans whom 
it was sought to proselyte might not be too much shocked ; and 
thus there was really no break in this custom of theirs as con- 
nected with the worship of their ancient goddess Fria ; so that 
when the ancient Church took up the idea of Lent, or a forty 
days' fast, the. old pagan conception of the observance of Frio's 
day, already adopted, was naturally and easily preserved, and 
eating fish during Lent to the exclusion of all other meats 
became the universal practice of the mother Church ; and parti- 
ally the custom with some of her daughters, remaining with 
both Catholic and Protestant to the present day. 

Easter, at the close of Lent, as you are aware, is celebrated in 
Christendom in honor of the resurrection of the alleged Saviour 
of the world. This Christian custom, likewise, has a pagan or 
heathen origin. The ancient Germans were accustomed in the 
early spring to observe a festival in honor of Ostera, their god- 
dess of nature. This festival was designed to hail the rising of 
nature from her winter sleep. Innocent customs of amusement, 
from time immemorial, prevailed on these occasions, such as the 
building of oster-Jires, and the exchanging of oster-eggs, variously 
colored. Teutonic converts to Christianity, as in the previous 
cases named, and for the same reasons, were allowed to retain 
this time-honored festival ; but they were taught to celebrate it 
in honor of the rising of Jesus from the grave instead of in 
accordance with their former belief, — the liberation of the young 
year from the chilling frosts of winter. So that in Christendom 
today, by a slight change of words, we have Easter fires and 
Easter eggs to amuse Christian children, and keep alive in their 
young minds the hereditary error of a material resurrection. 

The return of Christmas furnishes another important sugges- 
tion. Ancient nations for centuries before the dawn of the 
Christian era were accustomed to celebrate the return of the 
natural sun of our world from the winter solstice by a great 



CHRISTMAS AND ITS SUGGESTIONS. 353 

festival on the twenty-fifth of December, during which they per- 
formed religious ceremonies in honor of that bright luminary, 
feasted each other, and interchanged gifts as is done in the pres- 
ent day throughout Christendom. To have abolished these 
heathen practices in the olden time would have been as unpopu- 
lar, as previously intimated, as would be the abolition of 
Thanksgiving Day in our New England States ; and, besides, 
would have involved the rejection of any system thus seeking to 
violate such universal and long-cherished customs. Consequently, 
in the fourth century this was adopted by the Church, under 
the decree of Julius, then Bishop of Rome, as the birthday of 
the " Son of Righteousness "; and it has been so observed, as you 
know, down to the present time. 

Prior to this, however, the birth of Christ was believed to 
have occurred upon other days of the year. Some authorities 
have named May 25th, others April 19th or 20th. In the 
Orient and in Egypt they celebrated the Nativity on January 
9th. The Gauls are said to have celebrated December 25th as 
Jesus's birthday, and May 25th as the day of his resurrection. 
Other dates have been likewise named by different authorities. 
So that, really, it is a remarkable fact, strange as it may seem, 
that Christendom is still ignorant of the day on which the reputed 
Saviour of the world was born. And, yet, from the orthodox 
pulpits, and in the orthodox Sunday schools, the lesson is still 
taught that Christmas is the anniversary of the day on which 
Jesus of Nazareth, the very God of the universe, was born in the 
flesh. It may be, and is said, I know, that it can really make no 
difference in the end as to what precise day the Nazarene was 
born. This may be so ; but, still, the honest and intelligent 
enquirer would suggest, why not tell the truth about the matter, 
especially to our children ? 

Spiritualism repudiates entirely all the enforced dogmas of 
the Church, including those most intimately connected in the 
mind with the recurrence of Christmas, such as the special divin- 
ity of Jesus, and the vicarious atonement. Still, we would not 



354 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

be understood as ignoring its celebration altogether, although 
it would seem its religious ceremonies are entered into in total 
ignorance of the truth as to their origin. The custom of ren- 
dering the dear children happy with Christmas presents, of the 
annual commingling of families, of the renewal of the ties of 
affection, and the interchange of the urbanities and amenities of 
life, are all beautiful practices that should never be abandoned, 
although originating with the heathen. For, indeed, " the 
affections of humanity are the leaves, the foliage, of our being ; 
they catch every breath, and in the burden and heat of the day 
they make music and motion in a sultry world. . Stripped of 
that foliage how unsightly is human nature ? " 

The idea of the special divinity of Jesus, so intimately asso- 
ciated in the mind of Christendom, however erroneously, with 
the annual return of Christmas, was by no means a new thought 
among the religions of the ancient world, as already stated. In 
all countries well nigh, whether civilized or uncivilized, the 
popular system of theology has claimed to be based upon some 
infallible revelation from God. The founders of these systems 
have had it claimed for them that they were especially endowed 
by God ; and in more than one instance it is claimed for the 
founder of a system that he was the very God himself mani- 
fested in the flesh. Among the assumed founders of different 
systems of theology I may mention a few : Moses, the reputed 
leader, historian, and prophet of the Jews, who is said to have 
lived some fourteen or fifteen hundred years before the Christian 
era ; Zoroaster, the reputed founder of the theology that exists 
among the Parsees, who lived about one thousand years before 
the dawn of Christianity ; Confucius, the most eminent teacher 
of the most rational religion among the Chinese, born five hun- 
dred and fifty-one years before Jesus of Nazareth ; Buddha, who 
founded a system of religion in India called after himself, five 
hundred years before Christ ; Gautama, who founded the relig- 
ion existing in the Burmese empire about the same time ; Jesus 
of Nazareth, who, it is claimed, founded the Christian religion 



CHRISTMAS AND ITS SUGGESTIONS. 355 

near two thousand years ago, and the very God himself, whom all 
men should worship ; Mohammed, the founder of the Mohamme- 
dan religion in the seventh century ; and Chrishna, or Christna, 
the reputed Saviour of the Hindoos, who is said to have ante- 
dated the whole of these by many centuries. 

Among the so-called sacred and infallible books embodying 
different systems of theology, and said to have been derived 
through divine inspiration, are the following : the " Old Testa- 
ment " of the Jews ; the " Zend-a- Vesta " of the Parsees ; the 
"Great Learning" of the Chinese; the " Rig Yeda," with other 
sacred books of the Hindoos ; the " Vini Pidimot " of the Bur- 
mese empire ; the " New Testament " of the Christians ; and 
the " Koran " of the Mohammedans. Most of the Church dog- 
mas, legends, fables, and traditions, in relation to the miraculous 
conception, birth, and history of Jesus of Nazareth, one of the 
reformers just named, and the one whose life is more directly 
associated with Christmas in the general estimation of Christen- 
dom, are borrowed from, or at least have their counterpart in, 
one or more of the ancient systems now known, some of which 
had an existence before the Jews had a literature, or even an 
alphabet. More recent arch geological investigations have traced 
the counterpart of the history of Jesus, and also of Abraham, to 
the sacred books of the Hindoos, from thence to the Egyptians, 
and from thence transferred in part, first by Moses, to Jewish 
history, and secondly by Mohammed to the Arabians. Many of 
these sacred books, likewise, have their cosmogonies, which, 
like unto the assumed account of creation in the Old Testament 
of the Jews, are all alike wide of the truth found written in the 
granite ribs of the earth, as interpreted by geology, where the 
Infinite Architect himself has recorded the progress of the ages. 
The books attributed to Moses and other alleged writers of the 
Old and New Testaments, however, are declared to be the infal- 
lible word of God, and are held up today by the professed be- 
lievers in Christmas as the birthday of an incarnate God as 
eminently worthy of belief, and as an unerring guide for the con- 



356 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

duct of all the so-called Christian nations of the world. And 
for the rejection of these books as infallible, the orthodox 
teachers of this generation are hurling their anathemM marenatha 
against the judicious and unavoidable skepticism of the nine- 
teenth century. 

And, yet, Jesus himself protested against human infallibility, 
against all churchly dogmas, and the superstitious ceremonies of 
the Jewish ritual. He, likewise, repudiated m advance the deifi- 
cation absurdly awarded him after his death : "Why callest thou 
me good? " said he ; " there is none good but One, — that is God." 
Necessarily, during the age in which he lived, his protest was but 
partial ; but, as far as it went, it was emphatic. Very little prog- 
ress in the arts and sciences had been made among the Jews in 
his day, — indeed, very little progress was made for centuries 
after his death ; and the progressive steps in these directions 
throughout Christendom have been made under the protest and 
persecutions of the Church erroneously bearing his name. Print- 
ing, — "the art preservative of all other arts," — the grandest 
invention in the tide of time, was not introduced until the middle 
of the fifteenth century ; microscopes and telescopes were un- 
known ; electricity was but little appreciated ; the science of 
geology was very imperfect ; astrology was far more esteemed 
than astronomy ; the earth was believed to be a broad, flat plane 
of unknown extent ; and the king of day, and all his brilliant 
attendants, were supposed to be nothing more than lamps, poised 
amid the spaces above, for the exclusive use and benefit of earth's 
inhabitants. Very naturally, under such circumstances, the good 
man of Nazareth made no protest against the Mosaic history, 
traditions, or scientific errors ; but, intuitively rejecting the 
Mosaic idea of a God, he protested against the terrible character 
given Him in the Jewish Scriptures, and earnestly proclaimed 
Him a God of love, a spirit to be worshiped in spirit and in 
truth ; and, with but slight reference to the ten commandments 
as the legitimate foundation of a natural religion, he proclaimed 
to the lawyer who questioned him : " Thou shalt love the Lord 



CHRISTMAS AND ITS SUGaESTIONS. 357 

thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
thy mind. This is the first and great commandment ; and the 
second is like unto it : Thou shait love thy neighbor as thyself." 

As the result of his decided and noble protest, Jesus was put 
to death upon the cross, — a martyr for the advocacy of divine 
truth, a martyr for the same intuitional and natural religion, 
based upon the ministry of angels, for the promulgation and 
practical recognition of which the Spiritualist of today is being 
denounced by those who denominate themselves especially his 
followers ; and for which, so far as the progressive spirit of the 
age will allow, the liberal thinker of whatever name is being, 
likewise, crucified upon the Calvary of social ostracism between 
the two thieves, popular prejudice on the one hand, and ecclesi- 
astical bigotry on the other. 

Yet another thought which the recurrence of Christmas has 
suggested to my mind I propose to give, and then I shall close. 
It is this : Spiritualism is teaching that the time has arrived in 
the experiences of this world when the myths and mysticisms of 
the dead past should be consigned to oblivion, when all men- 
made gods and men-made creeds should be forgotten, and when 
the mere belief in a dogma can have no saving or destroying 
influence as regards the destiny of a soul. That the time has 
arrived when every individual man should understand that no 
vicarious atonement, no sacrifice of a better man than himself, 
can save him from the consequences of his own misdeeds, since, 
through the law of cause and effect, each individual is inexor- 
ably responsible for his or her own sins, and for none other. 
That the same kind of good works which secure the most unal- 
loyed happiness in the earth life will likewise ensure the highest 
joy in the worlds that are to come, independent of arbitrary 
creeds, independent of church-imposed ceremonies or sacraments, 
and that through the law of progress beyond the grave, infin- 
ite wisdom has made provision for the eventual happiness of the 
gloomiest soul in the deepest misery of earthly misdirection. 

That the time has arrived, likewise, when the gods of tradition 



358 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

aud of books, when deities in human form, and deities born of 
human imagery, must sink into forgetfulness. That the period 
has been reached in the world's progress when, through the 
intuitions of his own soul, and from the majesty of the universe, 
of which he constitutes the apex, man needs no teacher to tell 
him of the existence and character of his God, and that all dog- 
matic teachings in that direction, either through written revela- 
tions or alleged deific birthdays, or crucifixions, serve but to 
mystify and confuse rather than to instruct and elevate. 

In conclusion, it is certainly commendable to enjoy Christ- 
mas in a cheerful and rational manner, and to enable the dear 
children to do the same, upon each recurrence of the day ; but, 
at the same time, let us discard the mistaken idea of the especial 
divinity of the good man of Nazareth associated therewith, as 
well as the assumption that his death can in any manner serve 
as a vicarious atonement for our short-comings. On the con- 
trary, let us endeavor to reverently recognize continually the 
existence of an all pervading principle of good in the universe, 
— inexplicable to finite comprehension, — yet governing man. 
under co-existent laws, by and through the faculties implanted 
in him as an emanation from this divine source whose sovereign 
presence can be appreciated most highly in the stupendous yet 
sweetly beautiful revelations of nature ; in the pulsings of our 
own interior being ; and in the presence of angelic ministers of 
infinite beneficence,- — the disinthralled spirits of our departed 
ones of earth, who have become the mouth-pieces of love and 
wisdom to the surrounding hearts of humanity, and whose whis- 
perings, once appreciatively heard in life, remain in the ear of 
memory forever. 



LECTURE XX. 

PROTOPLASM, 

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE. 

The nebular and development theories as to the progress of 
matter are probably familiar to you all. Nevertheless, it will 
be necessary for me to advert to different points of these systems 
somewhat in detail, in order that I may legitimately reach the 
conclusions at which I aim. 

Advanced minds generally recognize the truth of the assump- 
tion that matter, not only as existing in the globe on which we 
dwell, but the entire body of matter comprehended in that vast 
array of stellar and planetary worlds which revolve in such 
majestic order throughout the heavenly spaces, existed at an 
unappreciable remote period in the past in one vast mass, " with- 
out form and void," as it were. It is also declared that com- 
prised within this vast mass, in multiplied combinations, are cer- 
tain simple substances termed elements or primates, of which 
material science has designated some sixty-five or more. The 
truth in this direction, however, may be said to be that 

" Matter is all one substance everywhere; 
And God, through matter, by unvaryiug laws, 
Unfolds for every world a human race, 
And builds its beautiful immortal seats. 
Mid springing flowers and groves of fruited bloom, 
In rich abundance for all living things. 
Each world has its own race that, like itself, 
Shines in the galaxy, floats in the stream 

(359) 



860 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

Of universal harmony, and glows 

All iniiltitudinous in spheral air; 

And chants accordant as its planet moves 

Through mild elysian realms of holy space. " 

Nevertheless, although these elements really are but modifi- 
cations of a primordial form of matter brought about by the 
changing conditions incidental to the laws of matter, still, rela- 
tively considered, they have been scientifically and properly 
designated as the primary bases of all matter, and as such as 
liable to exist in any of the revolving worlds around us as in 
our own. 

Again, matter is admittedly liable to an infinite variety of 
conditions under different circumstances, or under the operation 
of law as the exponent of the divine will. Science demonstrates 
this, as also the great influence of heat, in determining the vol- 
ume and other conditions of matter throughout the long past as 
well as the present. Hence, it is legitimately assumed that the 
matter contained in space (so called) previous to the formation 
of the stellar and planetary worlds was diffused throughout an 
unimaginable extent ; and that this mass of nebula must neces- 
sarily have been subjected to a very high degree of temperature, 
— a vast sea of heated lava, — more intense but not unlike the 
condition of the interior of our earth today, " without form and 
void," as I have said, upon and through which the infinite and 
inexplicable Father Soul was breathing and operating then as 
now by the agency of laws coexistent with matter, and with 
Himself. For we believe matter in the sphere of its absolute 
existence is as eternal as God ; that the amount of matter in 
the universe has ever been the same ; and that it would be equally 
as illogical and absurd to speak of the existence of a God dis- 
connected with a realm of manifestation, as it is impious and 
nonsensical to claim the existence of a vast concourse of worlds 
without a God. Matter, therefore, under infinite impulsion, is 
constantly giving forth a diversity in the sphere of manifestation, 
but remains forever the same in the sphere of its positive exist- 



PKOTOPLASM. 361 

GDce. In illustration of this may be cited the fact that the 
gases become liquids when subjected to sufficient pressure, each 
gas requiring a different amount of pressure. Also, water, when 
subjected to a temperature under thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, 
becomes ice ; raise the temperature to two hundred and twelve 
degrees, and it becomes steam, occupying a vast deal more space, 
but still remaining the same in the sphere of its absolute exist- 
ence. Hence, the conclusion is warrantable, as I have said, 
that the whole body of matter has ever been giving forth changes 
in the sphere of manifestation, — the entire realm, however, 
remaining intrinsically the same, although developing new forms 
and new features continually, under the influences of an ever 
present but inexplicable God. 

Based upon these and other facts which need not now be ad- 
verted to, some of the best authors, material and spiritual, have 
properly assumed that the vast body of nebulous matter or fire- 
mist, far back within the depths of the unappreciable past, col- 
lected at different points around nuclei, under the influence of 
the law of attraction, resulting in the formation of the stellar 
and planetary worlds, rotating as they formed, and bringing into 
the sphere of manifestation the centripetal and centrifugal forces ; 
each planet being held within the orbit of its revolution around 
the central and larger formation of its group, the sun, and 
rounding as it revolved by the same beautiful and simple law 
that renders globular the tear which gilds the eye of woman, or 
that honors the cheek of manhood. And, further, that the 
earth, as one of the children of our sun, under this sublime 
chronology, was at first of the same consistency of heated lava 
as this larger body from whence it was thrown off to its present 
position, during the earlier processes of planetary formation, 
revolving from west to east, flatteniag at the poles naturally, 
and distending its eastern and western diameter. After thfe 
lapse of untold ages, it is further assumed, its surface gradually 
cooled under the operation of laws applicable to its rotary 



862 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

motioD, and the igneous or primary rocks were developed as its 
first incrustation. 

In confirmation of the theory assumed in contradiction of 
the Adamic account of the origin of the earth is the fact that, 
at the present age of the universe, all throughout the heavenly 
spaces (so termed) are to be seen nebulas in every variety and 
grade of development. Some are visible to the naked eye 
from the surface of the earth in immense bodies of irregular 
form; other clusters as if congregating around nuclei; and 
others again appearing as nebulous stars, all indicating unmis- 
takably, we are told, the mode of development claimed for the 
stellar and planetary worlds already in existence, amid which, 
I doubt not, they are eventually to assume their position by and 
through the operation of the same laws that have resulted in the 
past in the formation of the older members of the same great 
family of God. And as these formative principles have been in 
operation during the lapse of untold ages, and worlds have been 
evolved in space, how beautifully and forcibly do the operations 
of the laws of nature bespeak the ever-living presence of some 
divine architect rulinsr and directinsj the whole ? And how har- 
moniously, for instance, does the law of gravitation hold not only 
our world in its place in the solar system, but the solar system in 
its place within the astral system, and each astral system within 
the bounds of its unmeasured orbit, amid the outstretched realm 
of the vast arcana of nature, where even imagination makes a 
halt, and the finite mind overreached essays no higher flight? 

The primary rocks of which I have just spoken, as composing 
the first incrustation of the earth, have been found through 
geological investigation to be wholly without fossil remains. 
Geologists also assert that an 'inconceivable period of time must 
have elapsed before these rocks could have become disintegrated 
as well as for the development of a suitable atmosphere for the 
production and preservation of vegetable and animal life. For 
you are aware, doubtless, in this connection, that the soil which 
today produces our grain was not originally formed as soil, but 



PEOTOPLASM. 363 

that it is simply the disintegrated primary rock. Incalculable, 
likewise, it is assumed, must have been the ages that elapsed 
in the development of the secondary strata of the earth with the 
living creatures that struggled into being daring its progress, 
the remains of which lie buried beneath the plane which gave 
them birth. These fossil remains found in the secondary strata 
of the earth's surface reveal the fact that the first living creat- 
ures that existed upon our globe were beings of the simplest 
forms, which remained attached to one spot and partook in some 
degree of the nature of the vegetable. The remains of more 
than thirty thousand different species of animals, we are told, 
have been found in this strata, of which there are no living 
specimens in the present day. 

Scientific investigation has decided upon the following order 
of development or evolvement : after the disintegration of the 
original rock, and the production of both soil and atmosphere, 
viz.y 1st, imperfect forms of vegetable life ; 2nd, lower forms of 
animal life ; 8rd, higher developments of vegetable life ; 4th, 
higher forms of animal life ; and, 5th, the entire destruction of 
some species of animal adapted to the temperature and condition 
of the earth at one period ; and, through its higher unfoldment, 
their place supplied consecutively by higher forms of animal 
structure until, finally, the physical man is evolved as the most 
refined and perfected organism in the realm of matter. 

In further confirmation of the growth, or evolvement of man 
from and through the kingdoms in nature below him, and in 
contradiction of the idea of his special creation, as conveyed in the 
song attached to Genesis, medical science likewise lends its aid. 
The brain of man, which exceeds all others in its development, 
anatomists tell us, at an early period in its foetal career is only 
a simple fold of nervous matter, with difficulty distinguishable 
into three parts, with a little tail-like prolongation, which is the 
first representative appearance of a spinal marrow in the human 
creature. In this state the human child has the brain of an adult 
fish. In a short time, however, the structure becomes more 



864 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

complex, the parts more distinct, and the spinal marrow better 
marked. In this state the human child has the brain of the adult 
reptile. Changes continue : certain parts which had hitherto 
appeared on the upper surface now pass toward the lower, and 
the human child has the brain of the adult bird. The com- 
plication of the organs increases, cavities termed ventricles are 
formed, together with other changes, and the human child has 
assumed, in transitu, the brain of the adult mammalia. Still 
other changes occur before the human brain presents itself. 

So, likewise, anatomists will tell you, similar changes occur 
in the growth and development of the human heart. In the 
human foetus, this organ, at an early stage, has the form of a 
prolonged tube, and the human child then has the heart of an 
adult insect. Later in its existence it becomes shortened and 
widened, and is divided by a contraction into two parts, — a ven- 
tricle and an auricle, — and the human child has the heart of an 
adult fish. A subdivision of the auricle afterwards makes a 
triple-chambered form, and the human child has the heart of an 
adult reptile. And, lastly, the ventricle becoming subdivided, 
also, the human child has the full mammal and human heart. 

Medical science tells us likewise that, at one of the last stages 
of the human foetal career, an intermaxillary bone is apparent, 
which is characteristic of the perfect ape. This is finally sup- 
pressed, and the child may be then said to take leave of the 
simian type, and become a true human being. 

The conclusion, therefore, it seems to me, is not only legitimate, 
but irresistible, that man, considered merely as a physical being, 
is the result of a long series of development or evolution in the 
realm of matter, through which divine energies have been work- 
ing out the grand result. The human organism, therefore, we 
esteem as the ultimatum in the sphere of material conformation, 
and as an epitome of the material universe, — a wonderful 
microcosm of the majestic macrocosm from whence it has been 
evolved. 

Having thus glanced merely at the theory of man's evolve- 



PROTOPLASM. 365 

ment from the kingdoms below him, which is perhaps more or 
less familiar to you all, I proceed to the consideration, as briefly 
as possible, of the second division of my discourse. 

Life, we are told, is a principle which works in and through 
matter, but is independent of it. With this indefinite declara- 
tion Christendom has been compelled to rest more or less satis- 
fied, since neither materialism nor theology has given any legiti- 
mate solution as to what this principle really is. The distin- 
guished Prof. Huxley, in this connection, deals with visible mat- 
ter only. He says : " There is some one kind of matter which 
is common to all living things, which binds together their end- 
less diversities by a physical unity ; that there is a bond, capa- 
ble of detection, which binds the flower which the girl wears on 
her hair with the blood that courses in her youthful veins, and 
is common in the dense and resisting mass of the oak, and those 
disks of glassy jelly which you see pulsating in a calm sea, and 
which drain away to a mere film in the hand that raises them 
from their element." 

He says, further : " If you take one of the minutest objects 
with which you are acquainted, say one of the hairs that cover 
the stem of the nettle, and j^lace it under a sufficiently high 
microscopic power, you shall find that it consists of a very deli- 
cate outer case of wood, on the inner surface of which is a layer 
of semi-fluid matter, full of innumerable granules of extreme 
minuteness. This semi-fluid lining is protoplasm, and consti- 
tutes a kind of bag, full of a limpid liquid. This protoplasmic 
layer of the nettle hair is in a condition of unceasing activity. 
Local contractions of the whole thickness of its substance pass 
slowly and gradually from point to point, giving an appearance 
of successive waves, as the bendinsr of the stalks or OTain in the 
breeze produces the apparent billows of a wheat field. But, in 
addition to these movements, and independently of them, the 
granules are driven in relatively rapid streams through channels 
in the protoplasm, generally in a stream up one side of the hair 
and down the other. This does not prevent, however, the exist- 



S66 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

ence of partial currents that take different routes. The cause 
of these currents seems to lie in contractions of the protoplasm 
which surround the channels in which they flow, but which are 
so minute that the best microscopes show their effects, and not 
themselves." And thus we are led to perceive what wonderful 
energies are imprisoned in the microscopic hair of a plant which 
we are accustomed to look upon as a mere passive organism, and 
that the same series of actions are going on all the while in 
infinite multiplication, motion, action, everywhere ; so that the 
wonderful noonday silence of a tropical forest, adds the professor, 
is only due to man's dullness of hearing, for, could his ears catch 
the murmur of those myriads of tiny maelstroms, as they whirl 
in incomprehensible billions of living cells, which constitute not 
alone the tree but its smallest branch, he would be stunned, as 
by the roar of a great city, or the rush of a mighty army. 

The distinguished scientist named tells us that, " if a drop of 
blood be drawn from one's finger, and viewed as you have viewed 
the elements that constitute the tiny, prickling hair of the net- 
tle, you shall find the infinitesimally small corpuscles that give it 
color floating in a bath of colorless liquid, which, if kept at the 
temperature of the body, will again show itself composed of an- 
other series of infinitely small almost transparent corpuscles 
endowed with marvelous activity, and absolutely coinciding with 
the protoplasm of the vital mass in the sting of the nettle. 
Hence, the earliest condition of the human organism in that 
state in which it has but just become distinguishable is nothing 
more nor less than a nucleated mass of protoplasm, which is the 
structural unit of the human body, as it is of all living things. 
The body is a mere multiple of such units." 

Science further tells us that protoplasm is effected by the 
direct action of electric shocks, and by the action of heat ; but 
it does not assume to tell us, I may remark in passing, from 
whence proceed the currents, or whose the hand that projects 
them. Indeed, it rather implies the absence of any directing 
will.. 



PROTOPLASM. 367 

We are told, then, that protoplasm is the physical basis of all 
life, — absolutely the same in the vegetable, the animal, and the 
human. We learn, likewise, that the various kingdoms in the 
realm of materialism are so closely conjoined in physical unity 
that science finds it well nigh impossible to determine at what 
individual point the vegetable kingdom terminates and the 
animal begins ; and that the animal and the physical man are so 
nearly allied that it is a truth from actual measurement that 
there is not so great a difference between the cranial capacity 
of the highest developed chimpanzee and the lowest human as 
exists between the higher and lower specimens of the human 
that have been subjected to scientific examination. Thus is to 
be found a continuously connected chain of evolving individual 
expressions in the realm of materialism, from the atom to the 
Avorm, from the worm to the physical man, — all clay, to be 
molded, painted, and refined, through the multiplied and various 
operations of organic law, but still remaining clay ; and as such, 
whatever its changes in the sphere of conformation, destined to 
decomposition and decay as agencies in its elevation on the 
plane of the material to the next highest degree of enforced 
activity and usefulness. Thus far, only, does science carry its 
conclusions in its definition of man and his material relations, 
establishing through infinite variety an immistakable physical 
unity, but nothmg more. 

But the facts and the philosophy of Spiritualism, which are 
open to the investigation of all, take up man at the point where 
science halts in its definitions, and carries his existence and his 
destiny to illimitable lengths beyond the realm of clay, along 
the pathway where thought and feeling take their rise, the region 
of divine intelligence from whence all the effects in matter of 
which I have been speaking find appropriate causes. This 
great gospel of facts likewise enforces the truth that the laws of 
nature constitute the harmonious methods through which the 
forces of nature act, that the forces of nature are reducible to 
the one force of motion, and that one force an unceasing evidence 



368 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

of the ever-living presence in the material universe of an inex- 
plicable primal cause, — that infinite principle which St. Paul 
declared is "above all, and through all, and in you all." Spiritu- 
alism likewise demonstrates that man's interior nature is an indi- 
vidualized entity, that the thinking principle of man is an emana- 
tion from that divine principle of intelligence which animates 
and governs the vast congeries of worlds all around us ; and that 
from the nature of their spiritual origin all men are fraternally 
allied to each other, — thus establishing a spiritual unity corre- 
sponding to the physical unity of protoplasmic relations of which 
I have been speaking, — the individualities of the one destined 
to alternate decay and renewal upon the plane of the material ; 
the personalities of the other destined to become participants in 
the beatific and immortal realities of the realm of progressive 
and still progressing thought. So that this glorious gospel of 
the skies casts a radiant intelligence over the conditions and 
relations of time, whilst it demonstratively furnishes 



" The golden key 
Which opes the palace of eternity. 



To return more immediately to the line of my argument. 
Protoplasm constitutes the physical basis of life, we are told, 
and is the same in all living things. In this connection Prof. 
Huxley presents another important fact, especially important 
from the deductions to be drawn therefrom. This fact is 
as! follows : whilst the vegetable kingdom is endowed with the 
ability, through natural law, of manufacturing protoplasm from 
the kingdom below it and from surrounding elements, animals 
and the human are unable to make it at all, and are obliged to 
procure it directly or indirectly from the department of life in 
which it is manufactured. The vegetable can and does take up 
and combine the carbonic acid, the water, the ammonia, and 
whatever other elements that go to make protoplasm ; the ox, 
the sheep, and the deer derive their protoplasm or physical 
basis of life from the plants of which they partake ; and in the 



PROTOPLASM. 369 

shape of beef, mutton, and venison transfer it to man. In this 
way the animal and the human procure their protoplasm for the 
sustenance of physical life, except in those cases where man 
chooses to rely alone upon the primitive laboratory, the vege- 
table kingdom. In other words, in the language of Prof. 
Huxley, " plants are the accumulators of power which animals 
distribute and disperse." 

Now, then, perhaps you perceive the conclusion which I seek 
to draw from this fact. If it be true that the vegetable king- 
dom, as stated, can alone manufacture protoplasm, the physical 
basis of life from the kingdom next below it, transmitting the 
same directly or indirectly to the kingdoms next above, by which 
method alone, it is declared, they can procure it, then is it not 
clearly apparent that the theory of the evolution of the race 
physically, in lieu of the doctrine of special creation, must be 
essentially true ? since from these facts must follow the posi- 
tive conclusion that man could not have existed until after the 
kingdoms below him had been evolved into being ; nor, indeed, 
until these kingdoms in the lapse of time were sufficiently pro- 
gressed to furnish the appropriate material for the more elevated 
plane of the human. And thus the theory of the spiritual school 
taught years before science had outlined any systematic thought 
in this direction, in regard to the origin and progressive destiny 
of the race, is now fully sustained by every known fact in science 
and every known law of nature. 

But the opponents of Spiritualism, in regard to the truth just 
advanced, as with all other propositions of the school when 
driven to the wall by the force of argument or the potency 
of facts, are ready to exclaim "Cm?* bono?'' In this case, they 
respond: Suppose you are correct in your conclusions, suppose 
man is the creature of gradual growth instead of special crea- 
tion ; suppose he does stand on the apex of the material uni- 
verse, as you claim, and that he is endowed interiorly with 
a quality superior to any known function of matter, what do 
you make of it ? Cui bono ? 



870 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

Before giving a more positive reply to this interrogatory, 
permit me to remark that it must be evident to all that to demand, 
as a conditional of rational faith in any subject matter presented 
to the mind for acceptance or rejection, that a cui bono should 
be proven is simply absurd; since the cui bono of a proposition, 
or of phenomena, can of course be determined alone by the indi- 
vidual mind to which either may be presented. What one mind 
may see or hear, and appreciate as worthy of the highest con- 
sideration, another mind may discard, either from indifference 
or from want of ability to comprehend. But I am by no means 
unwilling to respond more directly to the cui bono of our oppo- 
nents touching the question of the origin of man. If it be true, 
as I am satisfied it is, that man as a race is the result of growth 
and development from the kingdoms below the human, and not 
the result of special creation, as declared in Genesis, then the 
conclusion is eminently warrantable that the Adamic account of 
the origin of the races can be at best but an allegory, to be 
accepted or rejected as individual fancy or judgment may decide. 
If there has been no special creation, then it logically follows 
there has been no Biblical Garden of Eden, and no Fall of Man. 
If no Fall, then the personal devil or permanent hell of ancient 
and modern theology have been and are but the baseless chimeras 
of barbaric imagery, horribly useless appendages in connection 
with either history or poetry, whether having their origin in Bib- 
lical lore or Miltonian fancy. If no orthodox devil or hell, from 
whom and which man is to be rescued, then the sad story of a 
vicarious atonement, by the sacrifice of the innocent for the 
guilty, becomes but the legacy of error, bequeathed to succeeding 
generations from the darkest epoch of gloomy superstition and 
ignorance. If none of these dogmas be true, and the conclusion 
is warrantable from the premises, then the entire theological 
plan of salvation, in the estimation of the thoughtful, must sink 
into utter oblivion. For, if man be what the facts of Spirit- 
ualism and the truths of science most emphatically declare, then 
every individual man and woman must be occupying an appro- 



PROTOPLASM. 371 

priate niclie in some grand temple of design, under the super- 
vision of an Almighty Architect incomprehensible to the finite 
mind, whom no individual soul ever did, or ever can, in any way 
disappoint. The corollary is legitimate, and, as it seems to me, 
unavoidable that the being in the production of whom such a 
wealth of material, together with such a display of deific power, 
was necessary certainly must have been brought into existence 
for a high and noble purpose rather than for a low and degraded 
end, — for a future, at best, of alleged happiness, seemingly so 
monotonous as to be scarcely preferable to active torture. Hence 
Spiritualism inculcates that there could have been no such mis- 
takes as those adverted to in the birth of this beautiful child of 
Father God and Mother Nature. As your little children enter 
individually upon the scenes of time, fresh with the dews of 
heavenly innocence, so man, generically, came from the womb 
of nature a child, — so much a child that it is evident the race 
remained for untold centuries confined by the apron-strings of 
old time, unable to .step forth from the conditions of infancy and 
adolescence ; and, still, for centuries longer, man remained upon 
the borders, as it were, of a higher manhood, during the ages of 
what may be termed intellectual animalism, from which he has 
been gradually and slowly emerging for the past two or three 
centuries, and notably during the present century ; so that, in- 
stead of falling from some primeval state of perfection in the 
past, man has been continuously ascending from the barbarism 
of ignorance into higher and still higher conditions of mental 
and moral culture, under the operations of the universal law of 
generic progress. 

The unavoidable conclusion, from the premises stated^ there- 
fore, it seems to me, can but be that this wonderfully organized 
being has been consigned by Infinite beneficence to the pathway 
of his individual experiences as the most judicious and profit- 
able course of culture, in the processes of which pain and sorrow, 
anxiety, and at times even misdirection, are educational agencies 
in the enlargement of his emotional- nature and the expansion 



372 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

of his intellectual capacities, preparatory to more exalted con- 
ditions in another sphere of broader conceptions and diviner pos- 
sibilities. 

The theological dogmas of which I have been speaking involve 
the conclusion practically that man is religiously fit for nothing, 
the natural man fit only to be damned ; but Spiritualism enjoins 
a far more grand and beautiful conception of this most wonder- 
fully formed and wonderfully endowed creature, — the master- 
piece of the handiwork of the Divine Master-Mason of the uni- 
verse. It proclaims him externally or physically the epitome, 
as before stated, of all that has gone before him, — internally 
or spiritually the prophecy and the promise of unimaginable 
experiences amid the beatitudes of brighter and happier worlds 
that lie beyond the immediate conditions of the outer body and 
the outer world, — destined, however, when he shall have been 
eliminated from the conditions of the lower life, to carry with 
him the relative effects of those conditions, together with the 
results of his practical appreciation and personal application of 
the educational processes to which, under law, he has been sub- 
jected by the love and wisdom of the Divine Master, — these 
effects and results of the primary department determining his 
status in his first association with the graduating class above, 
with whom, according to individual effort and desire, he is to be 
hereafter connected in higher branches of study belonging to the 
higher life. Thus reasoning, the true Spiritualist naturally and 
necessarily feels better satisfied with the past, and better pre- 
pared for the future, come what may. Satisfied of the directing 
hand of an Infinite Pilot in the past, he feels and knows that 
this Pilot still directs the helm of human affairs in the present, 
and that he will still guide the bark of humanity after the stream 
of time shall have made its confi.uence with the ocean of eter- 
nity. He is as willing to trust the Divinity that rules his des- 
tiny on the other side of the Niagara of death as upon this. 
Having learned through the ministry of angels a higher appre- 
ciation of what Divine wisdom has effected in the past, he con- 



PROTOPLASM. 373 

fidentlj relies lapon assurances from the same source as to what 
Divine love will consummate in the future. 

Oh, then, my brother and sister Spiritualists, let us cultivate 
loftier conceptions of the glorious realities of our most holy faith ; 
let us endeavor to exercise faith in the conditions of time, and 
in the sequences of eternity, — faith in the past, faith in the 
present, faith in the future, faith in man, the child, faith in nat- 
ure, the mother, faith in God, the Father. Let our faith exhibit 
itself in our outward lives, in works of love and charity. And 
then when called to change the scenes of time for the realities 
of eternity, with our feet slippered in the violets of peace, and 
our brows crested with the rainbow of undying joy, we shall 
ascend the spiral stairway that leads to brighter realms, where, 
with the beloved and departed of other days, we shall join in 
the labor and the love of that still advancing throng of progres- 
sive souls who are now reveling far beyond where the bright- 
eyed stars are singing their everlasting anthems. 



LECTURE XXI. 



ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 



March 31, 1848, — the day we have met to commemo- 
rate, — I unhesitatingly esteem as the most important date in 
the intellectual and spiritual history of the race. During the 
hours of this day were introduced to human appreciation the 
letters of a sublime alphabet, the countless combinations of 
which contain, and will ultimately reveal, the annals of Almighty 
Providence, the science of unbounded wisdom, the poetry and 
the promise of universal love. 

Across the pathway of the ages, from time immemorial, the 
law of cause and effect has been continuously operative. 
Through the gradual development of human energies, and the 
natural progress of human thought, the full cycle of prepara- 
tory centuries was completed. The time had come. The 
period had arrived, not, as erroneously conceived in days of 
yore, when the voices of angels were to be heard by a chosen 
few, and then sink into silence forever ; but the hour was at 
hand when, through natural law, the ministry of angels was to 
become a recognized fact in the experiences of the world, ai^d 
all the races of earth eventually the common beneficiaries of 
this great truth. 

The digit on the dial-plate of time indicated the moment 
when, not when, as sung in story, God was to become incar- 
nate, for the first and only time ; but when, through progress- 
ive development, man might be enabled to realize the innate 
divinity of the entire human family. 

(374) 



AITNIVERSAEY ADDRESS. 375 

The time had come, not when man was to be taught that, 
through a vicarious atonement, he had been provided with a 
savior from the effects of his sins ; but when the human soul 
might imbibe the higher thought that man, through individual 
effort and desire, must become his own savior. 

Not that heaven was to be scandalized, and earth demoral- 
ized, by the sacrifice of the innocent for the guilty, as taught 
in other days ; but when man was to learn the inflexibility of 
that law of nature which forbids escape from the consequences 
of his own misdeeds. 

Heaven was to be brought no nearer earth, as in former 
times believed ; but earth, through angel and human effort, was 
to be elevated into closer relations with those brighter realms 
which lie just 

"Beyond her chilling winds and gloomy tides, 
Beyond death's cloudy portal ; 
Where nothing beautiful e'er fades, 
And love becomes immortal." 

The clock of eternity struck the hour some thirty-five years 
ago when earth was about to receive a crowning honor. A 
scene eminently sublime was about transpiring ; a scene many 
a time and ott partially repeated, but never before with results 
to be so widely disseminated, or so gladly received. 

Very many beautiful spirits, doubtless, knew of the mysteri- 
ous and transcendent event ; but few, perhaps, of the witness- 
ing angels conceived that the results of the seemingly tiny 
effort of that hour were, in the short space of a third of a cen- 
tury, destined to be heard, as now, echoing amid the archi- 
traves and arches of a progressing world ; while earth certainly 
dreamed not of the sublimity and universal importance of the 
occasion. 

The gifted Seer of Poughkeepsie, and other sages and sen- 
sitives, it is true, had more or less definitely foretold some such 
event; but the day and the hour were unknown, and the 
method of approach but faintly anticipated. Man had to learn 



876 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

more effectually the oft-repeated lesson, that truth in its ap- 
proach to mind is ever unassuming, — seeking to win rather 
than force its entrance into human consciousness. 

The eventful hour had arrived when the shrouded mystery 
of the centuries, but dimly foretold in the past, was about to 
be disclosed ; when the great fact of the perpetuity of individ- 
ual consciousness, individual affection, and individual progress 
beyond the grave, was to be satisfactorily revealed to wonder- 
ing men by exultant spirits. The door of eternity, ever held 
ajar by love, and yet so long declared shut through ecclesias- 
tical teachings, was about being thrown wide open to human 
appreciation. The long-called dead, mighty and simple, were 
aiaout to manifest their continued individuality by their pres- 
ence. Divested of the ghostliness with which superstition has 
clothed the departed, and freed from the shackles of earthly 
creeds and the bigotry of earthly sects, returning spirits were 
about to initiate the mind into a fuller realization of the immor- 
tality and divinity of the human race. 

But how shall this great truth be made manifest ? How and 
where the mighty advent accomplished ? Not in tones of thun- 
der, amid the warring of the elements, or the jarring of revolv- 
ing planets from their orbits. Not at Jerusalem, or at Rome ; 
not at Delphos, or at Mecca ; not in the palace, the cathedral, 
or the church ; not among those who are dazzled by the mere- 
tricious glare of worldly honors ; nor yet among those who hold 
the highest seats in the synagogue. But, as at Horeb, in the 
"still small voice" of undeniable facts, simply and unostenta- 
tiously, was this, the grandest truth of all the ages, communi- 
cated to human affection and human intelligence. 

Hydesville, Arcadia Township, "Wayne county, N. Y., was 
the unheralded spot, — three honest, unassuming girls, daugh- 
ters of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Fox, the humble agents, — man's 
material senses and his reason, the arbiters, — human spirits 
God's communicating almoners, — and human hearts the happy 
beneficiaries. 



ANKIVERSAKY ADDEESS. 377 

To my mind, I may remark in this connection, the star of 
Bethlehem, which is said to have led the Magi of the East 
upon an unknown journey to the stables of human labor, and 
around which so much of human hope has clustered for ages, 
when divested of the mistaken appendages of theology, and the 
grand fact established through the phenomena at Hydeville, 
properly interpreted, tend to the revelation of the same divine 
truths to the aspiring soul of man, viz., the common Father- 
hood of God ; the divinity and immortality of the race ; the 
ministry of angels ; the common brotherhood of man. 

The spiritual phenomena which succeeded the reputed ap- 
pearance of the star of Bethlehem, however, have been so 
misinterpreted and misapplied, — have been so shrouded in the 
myths and mysticisms of barbaric imagery and pagan folly, — 
have been, indeed, so substituted by man-made creeds and dog- 
mas, — that their original import and purpose have been entirely 
lost sight of. May we of the present generation be careful 
(as far as the use we make of them can determine) that mod- 
ern phenomena may be handed down to those who shall suc- 
ceed us in all their pristine simplicity and purity. 

But, on this anniversary of the eventful occasion of which I 
am speaking, let us, who in any degree realize its importance, 
for a moment or two contemplate the sublimely beautiful and 
inspiring scene to which I have adverted. In imagination let 
us stand upon that consecrated ground ; for holy indeed (but 
not exclusively so) should the Spiritualist deem the birthplace 
of phenomenal spirit-communion. Let us take our stand near 
the humble homestead of the family which I have named, the 
scene of the joyous event we have met to commemorate. The 
eye of day has closed upon a busy and a wrangling world ; 
night's mantle suspended above us is bedecked with sparkling 
universes, whilst the breezes of early spring are agitating the 
undulating clouds, which, like festoons of snowy drapery, are 
stretched as it were all along the blue walls of the sky. 
Neither the anxious crowd of visitors so frequently thronging 



378 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

the house — some to scoff, others to persecute, with but few to 
sympathize — nor yet the wearied family within can tell us 
aught of the sublime realities just dawning into recognition. 
In common with others, we feel disposed at first perhaps to 
join in the senseless laugh, when our attention is arrested in a 
manner never to be forgotten, as little Katie exclaims (gently 
striking together her tiny hands) : " Look, mother, look ! It 
can see as well as hear ! " 

But, ah, as the first intelligent perception of what is thus 
designed to be conveyed is had by the hitherto puzzled inves- 
tigators, who shall tell how glorious was the revelation thus 
begun ? Who shall ever fully appreciate this genesis of the 
gospel of facts ? Who shall ever number over the blessed 
results of this long proffered but just then realized boon? 
Who, then, with vision sufficiently clear to perceive what, even 
at this short distance of time, we so gratefully acknowledge 
today ? And who now shall presume to foretell the blissful 
results that are yet to be evolved from this seraph-gift from 
the land of beauty ? 

Human hearts stood still and human opinions faltered in 
and around that humble homestead. Though then unrecog- 
nized, now we know there were hosts of visitors unseen who, 
with angel gaze and loving impulse, were intelligently watching 
this trial-step of truth, this seraphic effort in behalf of human- 
ity. And, oh, what grand truths have already succeeded ! 
Through the simple alphabet being then communicated, instead 
of a distant and unappreciable future home for the souls of 
the race, we have learned that, surrounding and interpenetrat- 
ing the grand old earth and its impalpable air, are zones and 
spheres of spiritual substance made, which in perfect harmony 
are forever evolving and shining in " the white splendor of 
eternity "; that more extended zones and spheres, of substance 
incorporate, and translucent as are the currents of human 
thought, likewise encompass the majestic solar and astral sys- 
tems ; indeed, that all the so-called spaces are filled with revolv- 



ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 379 

ing and intervolving worlds, material aod spiritual, the greater 
holding the lesser, and one illimitable globe perhaps encom- 
passing the whole as it floats in the infinity of the incompre- 
hensible and the divine, — in attempting the contemplation of 
which, however, the finite mind must halt overtasked, essaying 
no such celestial flight. 

We have learned that all those vast congeries of worlds are 
inhabited by angel, archangel, and celestialized throngs of those 
wKp once walked the pathways of the different earths ; who once 
sorrowed and rejoiced, doubted, distrusted, and believed, as 
men and women are doing today ; and who sickened and suf- 
fered, and departed upon the hitherto dark and silent stream 
that is still coursing its way between the muddy banks of 
time and the bright shores of eternity, — the so-called dead of 
theology ! 

And as thus we stand, gazing upon the lonely cottage of 
thirty-five years since, how little dreamed the human actors in 
the scene that we were in close proximity to the spiritualized 
center of human biography, the apotheosis of the race, a scene 
of immortal realities, — the birthplace of angel sympathy with 
human weakness; indeed, the grandest event in the history of 
the universe, because the centerstance of advancing thought, 
around which in the far-off future shall cluster the immortal 
memories of all the earths and all the heavens throughout the 
unending cycles of all the ages. 

For amid those revolving and intervolving worlds, visible 
and invisible, which stretch out into the unappreciable depths 
of immensity, the meanest child of earth is not unknown. 
And as planet feels the impulse of neighboring planet, as star 
telegraphs to distant star, and as world answers to world in 
the grand oratorio of the material universe ; so, in the bright 
spheres and zones of the inner life, hearts are beating in uni- 
son with hearts ; angelic souls in love are answerins: the soul- 
throbs of earth, whilst the entire upper realm of mind — the 
angel, the archangel, the celestial — is echoing with the mel- 



880 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

ody of human love and human sympathy ; and those broad 
planes, 

" Where angels walk and seraphs are the wardens," 

reverberate continually with joyful utterances of the glorious 
truth in nature, so emphatically demonstrated by the fact at 
Hydesville, — there is no death, — whilst innumerable choirs, 
heart-flushed with life divine, proclaim unceasingly the perpe- 
tuity of consciousness beyond the grave, and the preservation 
of individual identity forever, as the destiny of the human soul 
in its onward, upward, and unending progress toward infinity. 

But vain indeed were the effort on my part to attempt a 
detail of all the grand and glorious truths, the individual and 
collective blessings, that are both directly and indirectly refer- 
able to the eventful incidents of the 31st of March, 1848, the 
birthday of phenomenal Spiritualism as at present recognized. 
Nor need I tell of the difficulties that have attended the inves- 
tigation and promulgation of this glorious system, this practical 
realization of the dream of the patriarch, wherein we have so 
often realized, in our sorrows and in our joys, amid sickness, 
suffering, and the departure of friends, that truly there does 
exist a ladder extending from earth to heaven, ever 

" Bright with beckoning angels." 

Nor need I tell of the misinterpretations with which either 
ignorance or prejudice has attempted to stigmatize our precious 
faith ; nor of the misapplication of its tenets, engendering in- 
harmony and sorrow ; nor yet of the persecution and ostracism 
which many of^ us have undergone, as pioneers of this glorious 
gospel of the skies. All these disagreeabilities and trials have 
been incidental to the operation of the law of progress, and 
but the precursors, I trust, of more harmonious and humanita- 
rian efforts hereafter. The past has served its purpose and 
made its record. 

On the present occasion, therefore, let us rather revel in the 
joyousness of the hour, eliminated as it has been through sor- 



ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 381 

row and persecution, whilst we indulge in pleasurable anticipa- 
tions of the future that is before us. And if it be true that 

" The best prophet of the future is the past," 

how glorious will be the results of confident and renewed 
effort ? For already, despite the denunciations of theology, the 
ridicule of science, the ostracism of society, the persecution of 
the unthinking of every class, and even the scornful rejection 
by the United States Senate in 1854, still the fact that spirits 
can, and under proper conditions do, commune with mortals 
has been unprecedented in its reception by mankind. The 
number of believers has swelled from the membership of one 
family to millions of human hearts, which are pulsating today 
with a holy joy ; and naught of malice or of opposition can mar 
the beauty of what is to those hearts a beneficent revelation. 

Not only is this true of our own continent, but " the fast- 
anchored isle " of our forefathers, and other lands, are rapidly 
and joyously enlarging the borders of our modern Zion, and 
swelling the ranks of the mighty army of spiritual progress. 

In vain does the argus-eyed press hurl its missiles of preju- 
dice and hate ; in vain does the pulpit pronounce its anathema 
marenatha ; in vain does atheism on the one hand, and theo- 
logical fanaticism on the other, cry out that our facts are a 
delusion and our theories infidel nonsense ; in vain has charla- 
tanry or malice led a few to spurn the hand that would bless 
them. Despite all the efforts of ignorance, of folly, and of 
hate to stifle it. Spiritualism exhibits powers of fascination 
that cannot be ignored. Men and women inquire and listen 
despite themselves. As in the imagery of the poet the an- 
cient mariner is said to have forced the bridal guests to listen 
to his mysterious music, so do the transcendent truths of Spir- 
itualism compel both the thoughtful and the thoughtless to stop 
in their career, and give attention to phenomena which con- 
tinue to charm notwithstanding their alleged obscurity and 
absurdity. 



882 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

Our glorious ship of truth, breasting the wrath of the billow, 
and the blasts of the storm, still rides majestically upon the roll- 
ing waves of time ; and is rapidly advancing, I doubt not, to the 
calm and peaceful harbor of general confidence ; while the mal- 
contents of every class must soon learn that neither ecclesiastical 
decrees, legislative enactments, nor mobocratic violence can stay 
the onward progress of the soul in the elevation of human hope, 
the expansion of human thought, and the enlargement of the area 
of human effort. 

Christendom, for near two thousand years, has been relying 
upon ymV/^ as a means of moral culture, and a basis of happiness 
hereafter, theology affirming in this connection, theoretically at 
least, that human impulses being sinful and earthly happiness 
vain, earth, its duties and enjoyments, are consequently to be 
ignored, in order to secure heavenly beatitudes in the future. 
Spiritualism, on the contrary, has furnished the age ^lih. facts 
instead of faith as the foundation of ethical progress ; and en- 
joins upon the individual mind the exercise of unbiased reason 
in determining the potency and application of these facts, in the 
production of rational enjoyment here, and consequent enjoy- 
ment hereafter. It inculcates that the two are not incompatible, 
since both the material and spiritual spheres of existence are but 
different conditions in the pathway of human progress, that 
man is the creature of the same laws in whatever department 
of the mighty pavilion of the universe he may be called to act, 
and that the same divinity prevails on earth, proportioned to 
conditions, that guides the ministry of angels and holds the 
planets within the compass of their mighty orbits. So that 
whilst Spiritualism in its broadest sense may be truthfully de- 
nominated a scientific fact as well as a philosophic truth, it is 
likewise a beautiful religion of the heart that is profitable for 
time as well as for eternity. 

Thus far in its history it has withstood the bitterness of hate 
from all old concrete channels of thought. The secular press 
and the sectarian ministry have denounced it in vain. The 



ANNIYERSARY ADDRESS. 883 

ostracism of society and the fabled torments of a theological hell 
have been continuously threatened without the effect desired. 
The thunders of the law have been hurled, and in some cases 
imprisonment resorted to ; legislative and municipal enactments 
in some of the States have been passed ; and even the strong 
arm of the General Government, through its Internal Revenue 
officials, been raised to prevent our media from manifesting the 
powers with which through organic law they have been endowed. 
But, like the avenger of guilt at the feast of the guilty, Spirit- 
ualism " will not down." It still rears its beautiful crest, adorn- 
ing the helmeted brows of its professors and advocates. Its 
course has been, and must be, continuously onward until the 
beauty and efficacy of its truths shall be known and appreciated 
wherever human hearts are beatinoj or human thous^ht has birth. 
Let us, then, my friends, upon this anniversary renew our 
efforts and desires for individual and associative harmony and 
progress. Let the friendly hand and kindly smile of today be- 
speak our unalterable recognition of the common brotherhood of 
man, under the benign auspices of the common Fatherhood of 
God ; and, remembering with gratitude the beloved and the de- 
parted of our own homesteads, let our greetings go forth to our 
brethren and sisters in this and other lands as we unite to cele- 
brate a general jubilee of aspiring souls. 



LECTURE XXn. 



SPIRITUALISTS AND MEDIUMS. 



The phenomena of Spiritualism, which have introduced to the 
world some of the grandest ideas that the human mind has ever 
been called upon to investigate and decide, are still agitating 
public thought, and commanding more or less of public interest. 
The important facts of the perpetuity of individual affection, 
and of individual progress beyond the grave, together with the 
declaration of the existence of universal incarnation and univer- 
sal inspiration, all of which are legitimate deductions from these 
phenomena, certainly constitute a combination of presumptive 
truths not to be passively ignored by reflective minds, whatever 
their creed or profession may be ; and, hence, the substratum 
of facts, upon which these philosophical and ethical propositions 
are presumed to rest, as well as the modes and methods of their 
attainment, are likewise worthy of the highest consideration. 
Yet, it cannot be denied, as it seems to me, that neither the 
facts communicated nor the mediums through whom communi- 
cation is being had, have ever found that universal appreciation 
so eminently their due, — indeed, that they are not held in proper 
estimation even by those who are professedly the beneficiaries 
of the same. 

These phenomena, however, notwithstanding the opprobrium 
attempted to be fastened upon them, still exist, as I have said, 
in varied and increasingly multiplied modes of manifestation, 
" like orient pearls at random (yet with system) strung." Wlaen 

* (384) 



SPIRITUALISTS AND MEDIUMS. 385 

these phenomena first came into prominency in the midst of 
American society, some minds were so constituted and condi- 
tioned that they early saw and appreciated the silver star of 
truth that shone in the hemisphere of thought above this infant 
fact and its lowly cradle at Hydesville. Their ideas grew broader 
and their hopes brighter as they listened to a repetition of the 
angelic song of the first era, " Glory to God in the highest ; on 
earth peace to all good-willing men," as the text should be ren- 
dered. Their mental sky became clearer and fairer ; with them 
bigotry died at once of its own rottenness, and sectarianism 
breathed its last. Loftier conceptions of the Deity dawned; a 
truer sense of the human soul and its possibilities was aroused, 
whilst nobler purposes and prospective certainties animated their 
lives. The earth grew fairer, the heavens brighter, and man's 
destiny more and more promisingly glorious, as the echoing 
raps continuously rang out an angel chorus upon the anvil of 
Time ; and this angel chorus has cheered the last earthly mo- 
ments of many of our pioneers who, since its inception, have 
gone to their guerdon in the skies. The great fact of spirit 
communion grew apace in human appreciation ; and even before 
the first twelve years of recognition had passed, the logic of the 
schools was confounded, and doctors of divinity became alarmed 
for the security of the scepter they had so long wielded. Dread 
theology, which, in the language of the poet, 

" Peopled earth with demons, hell with men, 
And heaven with slaves," 

began to lose its power over the minds and consciences of the race. 
The raps with other phases of spiritual phenomena began to be 
recognized as pages in a beautiful guide-book to the soul, which 
the angels had furnished, telling of a pathway, "arched with 
galaxies and paved with suns," through which the human soul 
shall pass to future beatitudes ; and along which brilliant high- 
way the beloved, and the departed are constantly bearing mes- 
sao^es of affection. And now that more than the third of a cen- 



386 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

tury has elapsed siDce the recognition of spiritual phenomena, 
still more demonstrable has become the fact of spirit communion, 
still more numerous the agencies of this connection, and still 
more glorious the results of such association. Millions of human 
souls today, instead of the scores and hundreds of the early 
period to which I have referred, are quaffing the sweet waters 
of this beautiful river of truth that is coursing so brightly 
through the gorges and over the valleys of time. In a million 
of human homes exist the positive evidences of immortal life ; 
and millions of human hearts are rejoicing with a most holy 
joy, which naught earthly alone can either give or take away. 
For, through the ministry of angels, they have found a "fount- 
ain of living water in every desert of feeling, a balm for every 
wound, tranquility in every distress, and a pillow in every tem- 
pest." They have found a religion that teaches, in harmony 
with the lessons of Jesus, " that man is greater than the Sab- 
bath, that he is greater than the cathedral or the church, the 
priesthood, or the law." They have found a philosophy, grand 
and glorious, which, in conjunction with science, is teaching that, 
as, under Infinite will and power, together with Infinite love and 
wisdom, "unintelligent force and inert matter have, through 
all the long ages, been waltzing hand in hand through the vast 
halls of creation, and today, after millions of years, are as fresh 
as ever they were, the Deity cannot have impeached and stulti- 
fied Himself by thus endowing these with endless existence, and 
at the same time wholly disregarded the thinking principle in 
man ; that the Infinite Father, operating through appropriate 
and eternal laws, cannot have preserved the atom and forgotten 
the soul "; but that as in inanimate nature the acorn foretells 
the future unfolding of the life and beauty of the oak, just so 
surely the facts of Spiritualism are demonstrating that the soul 
of man, with all its expanding and aspiring powers, foretells its 
growth and perfection, together with the perpetuity of its affec- 
tions, and its consciousness in the unappreciable eternities of the 
future. And thus, in addition to all his inner and spiritual 



SPIRITUALISTS AND MEDIUMS. 387 

sources of happiness to the true Spiritualist, under the influences 
of this glorious system of science, of philosophy, and of religion 
all external nature assumes a more brilliant and intelligent 
aspect, — " the stillness of noon, the holy and eloquent repose 
of twilight, its rosy sky and balmy air, its shadows and its dews, 
have equally for the heart a whisper and a lesson. The wan 
stars from which, from time immemorial well nigh, man has 
endeavored to shape out a chart of the undiscoverable future ; 
the mysterious moon, to which the great ocean ministers from 
its untrodden shrines ; the mighty winds, which traverse the vast 
air, pilgrims from an eternal home to an unpenetrated bourne ; 
the illimitable heavens all around us, where none ever gazed 
without a vague craving for something that the earth cannot 
give, and a vague sense of a future existence in which that some- 
thing will be assuredly enjoyed," — all have for the Spiritualist 
a language and a revelation, the prologue and epilogue of which 
alike are constituted in the sweet whisperings of the blessed 
angels. 

Now, the discovery of this grand truth in nature, this glorious 
link in that eternal chain with which the Infinite has bound 
together the happiness, the duty, and the destiny of the races, 
and indissolubly fastened individual interests to each other 
throughout the entire universe of being, should fill the heart 
with more true joy " than all the fame with which the most 
ingenious paradox ever crowned the most ingenious sophist." 

In what manner have we become possessed of these consola- 
tory truths of which I have been speaking ? To whom are we 
indebted, as instrumentalities at least, for the knowledge of a 
demonstrated immortality, and all its grand corollaries in the 
loftier and broader departments of thought ? Who constitute 
the channels of intercommunion between this and the next sphere 
of existence ? Who have been the untiring agents of angelic 
benevolence and instruction to the anxious and inquiring souls 
of the present most wonderful epoch in the intellectual and emo- 
tional experiences of the race ? 



888 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

In response to these interrogatories, the mind at once recurs 
to that class of individuals in our midst known distinctively as 
spiritual mediums, a class, I sincerely believe, the most sadly 
misunderstood, and hence the most sadly misrepresented, of any 
now in existence. 

Of this class, and of mediumship, in general, I desire now to 
speak, briefly necessarily, but as extendedly as I may, in one 
lecture. And, first, permit me to advert to a few scientific facts 
as pertinent to my theme, with which you may be more or less 
familiar. It is stated that, when Dr. Kane was wintering in 
Smith's Sound, while on his last Polar expedition, it was discov- 
ered on some occasions that his thermometers registered sixty 
degrees below the zero of Fahrenheit. He discovered also, how^ 
ever, that three thermometers which agreed at medium tempera- 
tures disagreed materially at these low temperatures when sus- 
pended in the open air at short distances from each other. Like- 
wise, that these thermometers, if approached suddenly, or from 
the windward side, or if the breath or emanations of the body 
reached them, would fluctuate violently ; that correct readings 
could only be obtained by approaching them from the leeward 
cautiously, and reading off the degrees with suppressed breath at 
as great a distance as the figures on the scale were visible ; and 
that thus. accuracy could only be obtained by conforming strictly 
to the delicate conditions imposed by nature. 

Again, if you desire to obtain a true north and south line 
with a delicately balanced compass, it is well known you must 
remove all bodies containing iron or steel from the neighborhood. 
If the observer has even a pocket knife about hioi, he will fail 
of the desired result. 

The explorer, taking sextant observations to ascertain his 
position, uses mercury for an artificial horizon. He and his 
assistants are as still as possible while the sextant angle is taken. 
A loud word, a foot fall, even a quick motion of the body, will 
cause the quicksilver to oscillate ; and inaccuracy is the result. 

Alpine guides tell us that, at a certain point in the ascent of 



SPIEITUALISTS AND MEDIUMS. 389 

Mount Blanc, the snow is held in such wonderful and delicate 
poise that a single loud exclamation will precipate a hundred 
thousand tons in thundering avalanche on the incautious climber. 

Thus accuracy, we learn, safety, success, are simply results of 
obedience to natural laws ; and a man would be considered worse 
than foolish who disregarded the same, and still expected to 
obtain desired results. 

Now, it is an unmistakable fact, too slightly appreciated, that 
mediumistic requirements and conditions constitute a striking 
parallel in the animate to the important facts just instanced in 
the inanimate department of nature ; and, therefore, if a de- 
gired result is attainable at all through phenomena in the pres- 
ence of mediums, it must be in accordance with some law, and 
can be best attained by the faithful observance of all the known 
requirements and conditions incidental to that law. Yet there 
are many persons who find it difficult to realize, what all can- 
did observers who are familiar with the organic conditions and 
experiences of mediums will tell you is a fact, that as a rule 
they are intensely and most frequently painfully sensitive to all 
external as well as interior influences ; and, indeed, that all 
inharmonious influences, from whatever source, affect them 
more or less injuriously, and as readily as disobedience to law 
affects the degrees of the thermometer, the mercury of the 
explorer, or the delicately poised snow of Mount Blanc. 

To such natures, if their services are to be beneficial to 
themselves or others, harmonious conditions are an absolute 
necessity. Physical discomfort, mental or emotional discord, 
and even atmospheric disturbances, with most mediums are the 
synonyms of physical, intellectual, and spiritual prostration or 
depression, and of consequent mediumistic inharmony, more or 
less modified by such counteracting iiifiuences as their spirit 
guides respectively may be enabled to bring to bear. Hence 
the too frequent halting philosophy heard in your circles, and 
at times upon your rostrums ; the too common incongruity in 
the phenomenal department, and consequent uncertainty as ig» 



390 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

results ; the too familiar allegations of fraud, and seeming 
causes for the same ; and likewise the consequent too-oft 
recurring ill health and unhappiness, more or less dependent 
upon all classes of mediumship. Mediums, who are necessa- 
rily but men and women with human characteristics, may be 
appropriately compared to a certain leaf, described by some old 
traveler, as readily expanding itself to warmth ; but when 
chilled not only shrinking and closing, but presenting to the 
spectator sharp thorns, which had previously lain concealed and 
inoffensive upon the opposite side. In other words, mediums 
may too often exhibit the frailties of humanity to a degree 
that injustice and unkindness could alone develop into exercise. 
These inharmonies to which I have referred, as too fre- 
quently affecting mediums, existing as they do in multiplied 
and various forms arising from multiplied and various causes, 
over which controlling minds can but rarely gain complete 
ascendency, and the medium scarcely ever operate deleteri- 
ously at times by a double action, so to speak. They deprive 
the medium of that passivity requisite for the production of 
desired results on the part of an honestly intentioned and har- 
monious spirit, and at the same time render the channel of 
communication more or less accessible for less developed influ- 
ences to produce, either through ignorance or design, innumer- 
able inharmonies and inconsistencies, in as many different ways 
as there are different organizational idiosyncrasies to be effected. 
Such are some of the difficulties attendant upon communication 
between the two spheres of man's existence, the inner and the 
outer life. Can it be wondered at that confusion should exist 
among the adherents of a system that is really as yet in its 
incipiency ? But surely such difficulties among investigators, 
instead of engendering distrust and too frequently charges of 
dishonesty against our mediums and those who seek to defend 
them, should rather beget increased brotherly affection and 
sympathy, as well as more earnest and continuous effort after 
knowledge touching the laws of control. 



SPIRITUALISTS AND MEDIUMS. 391 

Every child that has grown to manhood or womanhood has, 
in some sort, developed an individuality peculiarly their own, 
even though the individuality of some (if the paradox may be 
allowed) may be said by sterner natures to consist in the want 
of a well-defined personality. And the individuality of each 
of course has been, hereditarily and otherwise, the natural com- 
bination of the animal, the intellectual, and the spiritual, — the 
one or the other quality more^^or less predominating. Some 
few persons, — and they are very few, — says an able writer, 
seem to be possessed constitutionally of an intense, steady, un- 
changeable individuality. They seem to have been fashioned 
as the God of Nature has fashioned the majestic oak of the 
forest, which lives on through the storms of winter as well as 
the heat of summer ; and, when it has let fall the sere and yel- 
low leaf of autumn, stretches forth its bare arms and breasts 
unharmed by the wrath of the hurricane. 

There is yet another class, the same writer has truthfully said, 
who, like the musical instruments in your 23arlor, are formed 
for exquisite uses, but are to a great extent dependent for har- 
mony or discord upon the finger that touches them. Under the 
hand of a kindly congenial and cultivated nature, they will 
give forth a grand oratorio of natural symphonies that please 
the ear or win the heart. But when the ignorant, the uncon- 
genial, the harsh and unkind touch the keys of their nature, 
discord and inharmony are more or less the result, however 
beautifully attuned they may have previously been. In one 
sense, whether they recognize the fact or not, you may make 
what you please of them, and gather what you will of harmony 
or discord. This latter class, speaking in general terms, are 
the sensitives, in most cases distinctively the mediums of the 
hour. None of them are without their Gethsemane, — but few 
without a Calvary. Mankind should be loving and charitable, 
persuasive and gentle to all such ; they are the channels of 
spiritual thought, the mediators through whom the longings of 
earth may be registered on high, and the whisperings of the 



392 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

angel world echoed in the hearts of humanity. They are the 
pioneers of a New Dispensation. 

These mediumistic peculiarities all experienced Spiritualists 
can but admit. The general mind, outside the spiritual ranks, 
cannot of course be expected to comprehend the true nature of 
such characters, the necessary conditions for their usefulness, 
or the full import of their mission to the race. It is not there- 
fore of the treatment extended to mediums by what may be 
termed the outside world that I am speaking, for indeed the 
opposition from this source has done comparatively but little 
to stay the progress of Spiritualism. Our cause, as one of the 
elements in the moral and spiritual structure of society, may be 
appropriately compared to an architectural arch, with medium- 
ship as the keystone ; and hence it is capable of sustaining un- 
harmed the entire weight of opposition from without, and can 
be deleteriously affected only by pressure from within. It is 
therefore to Spiritualists that I am addressing myself, and of 
the treatment which mediums, both physical and philosophical, 
receive from those of the same household of faith that I am 
speaking. And for what blessing, as Spiritualists, are we not 
indebted to the suggestive school of mediumship? To this 
school we are more or less indebted for all the glorious spirit- 
ual truths that have culminated in the realm of thought durins: 
the last third of a century ; through this agency has the sooth- 
ing magnetism of brother or sister dissipated pain, and often 
bid the death-ahgel depart ; through this agency the tears 
around a million hearth-stones have been dried, and millions of 
human hearts are beating with uuabated happiness ; through 
this agency the fireside, the counting-room, the workshop, and 
the studio have been gladdened into smiles ; through this 
agency the midnight lamp of the man of letters burns less 
dimly, and the circling waters of individual thought are dancing 
more merrily in the glorious sunshine of a new and brighter 
philosophy than any comprehended in the teachings of old. 
And, yet, what is the condition of our mediums, and what are 



SPIRITUALISTS AND MEDIUMS. 393 

the Spiritualists as a body doing for them to ward off the in- 
harmony of their surroundings, or cheer the life-line of their 
earthly existence ? Of course there are charitable and appre- 
ciative exceptions ; but, as a general rule, Spiritualists in their 
visits to mediums seem to be searching for defects in the me- 
dium rather than for truths of the skies, — and often upon bare 
suspicion of fraud are uncompromisingly bitter in their denun- 
ciations of the medium. 

Indeed, is it not being taught, and to a considerable extent 
practiced, that the general order of common justice in the case 
of alleged criminals is to be reversed in the cases of assumed 
spiritual manifestations, and the poor mediums, less considered 
than even the supposed murderer, are to be held guilty until 
they can (at times under the most unfavorable circumstances) 
prove themselves innocent of fraud, in the estimation of the 
most prejudiced, and sometimes the most ignorant, censors? 
The mediums are for the most part in a state of poverty, and 
sometimes in absolute want, and compelled to resort to the 
merest drudgery for bread, for such cases have come under my 
personal observation; and yet, when demanding compensation 
far less than other occupations requiring all their time would 
afford, they are denounced as being avaricious and too eager to 
accumulate ; some are loudly blamed for looking too shabby in 
their apparel, whilst others are condemned for desiring to dress 
and live too well. I have even known speakers objected to 
for seeking to live like ladies and gentlemen ; some are de- 
nounced as being too frivolous, others as being too sanctimo- 
nious ; some are ostracized on the score of alleged licentious- 
ness, others derided and slandered when professing purity; 
some are denounced for locating as speakers, others abused for 
itinerating ; some are discountenanced for speaking with their 
eyes closed, and charged with committing their discourses to 
memory, whilst the inspiration of others is questioned because 
their eyes are opened, or because their guides have prepared 
their lectures beforehand ; some are condemned for alleged 



894 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

injudicious friendships, and others censured for matrimonial 
alliances not pleasing to the tastes of others instead of them- 
selves ; and so on to the end of the chapter of individual idio- 
syncrasies in the lives of mediums, which seem to be commented 
upon in a manner exercised toward no other class in the com- 
munity. Now all this is evidently wrong, it seems to me, and 
destructive of the health, harmony, and usefulness of mediums, 
unless, indeed, mediumship be in and of itself a great lie, and 
consequently more or less prejudicial to any cause in which they 
may be called to labor. 

Again, gradually, and in many cases imperceptibly to them- 
selves, it is to be feared that Spiritualists as a body, through an 
overwhelming interest in the wonderful character of personal 
consolations of mediumistic phenomena, have lost sight of the 
ethical and philosophical deductions legitimately deducible 
therefrom. In the intense gratification arising from the demon- 
stration of the perpetuity of individual consciousness beyond 
the grave, through the fact of possible communion with our 
departed friends, they seem to have forgotten the grand and 
glorious corollaries incidental to the recognition of such funda- 
mental truths, and have become almost exclusively absorbed 
in their admiration for the physical, and especially the start- 
ling, phases of the phenomena of the day. Their interest seems 
to have become so entirely enlisted in the physical facts demon- 
strating the soul's existence in a future life that they utterly 
fail in the consideration and practical application in this life of 
well nigh all the truths deducible from this fact touching the 
duties, welfare, and destiny of that soul. They fail, in its 
fullest extent, of any practical appreciation of the philosophic 
proposition that the possibility of angel communion and asso- 
ciation involves a constant individual effort for greater personal 
purity as necessary to more perfected communion and more 
elevating association. They do not seem to understand clearly 
that the fact of the existence of a door which the angels have 
thus thrown open to loftier conceptions, more enlarged ideas, 



SPIRITUALISTS AND MEDIUMS. 395 

and more ennobling thoughts, practically imposes upon the 
accepter of this fact the duty of continuous and untiring labor 
for a higher appreciation and a daily application of all these 
angel-fraught blessings, — thus personally contributing to the 
establishment of the fact that Spiritualism, properly under- 
stood, is essentially the most elevated, philanthropical, and mor- 
ally imbued system of ethics known to man, whilst at the same 
time it inculcates the happiest and most rational conceptions 
touching the beneficences of this life and the possible benedic- 
tions of the next. 

Failing thus to a great extent in the practical aspirations 
and personally imposed duties which should be recognized 
as the legitimate outgrowth of spiritual phenomena, they have, 
as I have said, too generally confined their attention and their 
interest to the material facts as such, without an advanced 
thought beyond, and especially to the more startling phases of 
the same. And, hence, I fear that it cannot be denied that, as 
a body, Spiritualists have become seekers after the marvelous 
almost exclusively, constantly searching out and longing for the 
phenomenal production of an oft-repeated fact, to the neglect 
of the practical and legitimate significance of that fact. And, 
hence, it is to be feared tliat too many may be correctly termed 
wonder seekers instead of truth seekers. As a natural conse- 
quence of such conditions, the general mind has imperceptibly 
grown into the habit of perpetually demanding, in their own 
minds, and sometimes even orally, something more and more 
startling in the line of physical manifestations ; whilst the sweet 
and gentle presence and commune of our angel friends, freighted 
with lessons of purity and truth, are comparatively ignored 
through the predominance of this overwhelming and almost 
universal desire for the marvelously phenomenal. And this is 
the condition of mind, more or less positively manifested, in 
which many rush into the presence of mediums for private sit- 
tings, and to the general seances, with the determination, more 
or less definitely fixed in each mind, that the results of the 



396 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

interview shall be equal, if not superior, to all previous experi- 
ences ; or else the medium shall feel the effect of their disap- 
pointment and consequent indignation in some manner. Such 
in a greater or less degree is the positive mental atmosphere of 
most of the circles and private seances at the present time. 
And such, in addition to the causes of disquietude already men- 
tioned, are the inharmonious conditions in which most of our 
mediums are being constantly called upon for the exercise of 
their powers, superadded to which are too often additional en- 
forced conditions by sitters themselves, which may or may not 
be lamentably deleterious. 

Unless, as I have said, mediumship be in and of itself a 
majestic lie, can we wonder that failures to produce phenomena 
altogether are numerous ; or that worse than such failures 
should occur, wherein faulty attempts are made to meet unwar- 
rantable or extravagant demands by ignorant or ill-disposed 
spirits, who have succeeded in gaining partial or full control 
through the inharmonies adverted to ? which failures almost 
inevitably result in charges of fraud against the medium, — 
when, in most cases, I apprehend, the suffering sensitive is the 
least sinning of all concerned, whilst unrest and distrust are 
painfully on the increase among the professed adherents of 
God's great Gospel of Facts. 

Of course I am speaking thus of genuine mediums only, 
who can but be so affected by prejudicial surroundings that 
inharmonious spirits, without the consciousness of the medium, 
may be the projectors of incongruous and unsatisfactory mani- 
festations. It seems to me this is a possible fact, universally 
incidental to mediumship. If so, surely the cure for such un- 
happy conditions, among Spiritualists especially, does not con- 
sist in unqualified condemnatioQ of the medium, but should 
rather lead to the elevation and purification of our aspirations 
as investigators, and to the general harmonization of pre-requi- 
site conditions for the reception of spiritual truth through me- 
diumistic agency. 



SPIRITUALISTS AND MEDIUMS. 397 

I do not Tcnow it to be a fact, but I am told by those in whose 
integrity and judgment I have the utmost confidence that there 
are genuine mediums who are guilty of knowingly practicing 
fraud. If this be so, if there be any amongst us who are so 
lost to all sense of purity and common honesty as to avail 
themselves of the confidence of their fellows as to thus fraudu- 
lently practice upon our highest and holiest emotions, for the 
purposes of personal aggrandizement, then let us ask God and 
the dear angels to help them from out their degradation. Let 
us gently warn them of the great wrong they are doing ; and if 
they will not heed us, let us avoid them as we would the deadly 
viper in our path, leaving them to a realization of the inevita- 
ble results of their own misdeeds. But even with regard to 
the class of mediums against whom such charges are made, 
may it not be that they are not really as faulty as a surface 
perception might decide ? We know, as I have previously 
said, that mediums are necessarily sensitive to external as well 
as internal influences. May it not, therefore, be possible that 
some of the derelictions charged upon them as willful and per- 
sonal defects are solely attributable to psychological and irre- 
sistible demands, reaching them from positive and suspicious 
minds, through the inharmonious atmospheric influences by 
which they are so often surrounded, both in their private 
seances and public circles ? Indeed, there are so many possi- 
bilities in favor of the unconscious, yet seemingly conscious, 
action of mediums in connection with manifestations occurring 
in their presence that, for myself, I always prefer giving them 
the benefit of any doubts that may arise, from the fear that I 
may fall into the lamentable error of condemning the true and 
the good. In fine, my long experience and observation forbid 
that I should deal otherwise than gently and charitably with 
these mimosa in the moral garden of our God. And I can 
but conclude that I had 

"Better trust all, and be deceived, 

And weep that trust and that deceiving, 



398 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

Than doubt one heart which, if believed, 
Had blessed one's life with true believing." 

A few words now as to rostrum mediumship, if I may be 
allowed the term, whether consciously or unconsciously exer- 
cised. And this form of mediumship seems to be equally mis- 
understood with others, and in some instances is treated with 
even greater want of consideration, — mainly, doubtless, from 
the fact that the presence of control is less easily appreciated, 
and its manifestation, varying essentially in different speakers, 
is therefore the more difficult of comprehension. In the first 
place, our speakers are more poorly remunerated than is the 
performance of the same amount of intellectual labor, and the 
same expenditure of vital force, in any other field of human 
effort. And just here permit me to say my remarks must not 
be considered as an appeal on my own behalf as a speaker, for 
two reasons : first, it is to be feared that in the spiritualistic 
field of thought, as in well nigh all human activities, either 
mental or physical, it is too often true that 

*' Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage; 
To have done is to hang 
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail, 
In monumental mockery ! " 

In other words, the pioneers of our cause, in the estimation of 
many of our people, seem to be looked upon as having well 
nigh worn out their usefulness, and consequently perhaps their 
welcome. And, secondly, my increasing years and protracted 
ill health warn me that I cannot expect, on this side of life, to 
perform much more of labor in behalf of the glorious cause I 
have so much loved, and have done the best I know to advance. 
It is not in any selfish or avaricious sense, therefore, that I am 
speaking, but for the benefit of younger occupants of the ros- 
trum, and through them for the general benefit of the cause so 
eminently worthy of our best affections and our best efforts. 
It is a fact, however, that the payment of our itinerating speak- 



SPIRITUALISTS AND MEDIUMS. 

ers is but small in comparison with the duties they are required 
to perform, the amount of territory they have to traverse, the 
appearance they are expected to make, together with the domes- 
tic responsibilities generally devolving upon them in common 
with the rest of the human family. Besides, the constant strain 
upon the affections from continuous separation from their fami- 
lies, whether sick or well, together with the punctuality ex- 
pected from them under all circumstances, and the increased 
expenditure of means incidental to such conditions, should like- 
wise be considered in this connection. In painful proof of the 
insufficiency adverted to, I need only refer to the fact that by 
far too many of the ablest advocates of Spiritualism have been 
compelled, within the last thirty years, to engage in other 
avocations in the procurement of bread for themselves and fami- 
lies ; whilst others, worn out by their labors and the wear and 
tear for material subsistence, have gone to their reward in the 
beautiful realm of sympathy and of compensation. 

It is generally recognized as a fact that the intellectual force 
of trance speaking is more or less in accordance with the cul- 
ture, or the organic capacity for culture, on the part of the 
medium, modified by the harmonious or discordant conditions 
preceding and attendant upon each effort. With this fact in 
view, how unfortunate, in addition to the circumstances just 
mentioned, are the conditions generally provided for our itiner- 
ating laborers throughout the country, — as a rule, I mean, for 
there are honorable exceptions. When we remember how the 
brains of our speakers are being called into use by two, and 
frequently three, lectures on Sunday, preceded and succeeded, 
as they often are, by longer or shorter exercises every night in 
the week; when we reflect upon the magnetic conditions of 
most of the halls used by Spiritualists on Sundays, occasioned 
frequently by the inebriety and by the political or social wrang- 
ling of disputants during the week ; or when we call to mind 
the many unfortunate local differences and bickerings among 
the Spiritualists themselves, in so many of our cities, towns, and 



400 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

villages tliroughout the country, with which our itinerant speak- 
ers are most generally brought in contact, and in some instances 
made acquainted with in expectation of their taking sides ; and 
when we observe with what criticism, indeed with what hyper- 
criticism, the efforts of our speakers, and especially our trance 
speakers, are met, and which they are led continually to expect 
from the fact that some of our ablest and most completel}^ self- 
poised writers are unceasingly engaged in scanning their efforts, 
with a view seemingly for the discovery of errors of some sort, 
irrespective of the more frequent truths and beauties with 
which our spirit friends are endeavoring to instruct and benefit 
us through this method of mediumship ; and, finally, when, if we 
believe in mediumship at all, we are unable to ignore the fact 
that these sensitives must be more or less deleteriously affected 
and painfully disturbed by all the previous conditions adverted 
to, as well as by such a harsh and suspicious system of surveil- 
ance, can it be wondered at — indeed, is it not to be naturally 
expected — that to some extent at least the condition of the 
instrument will impair the lesson to be communicated, both as 
to fact and philosophy, — thus materially detracting from the 
force and beauty of what the dear spirits might otherwise be 
able to present ? 

The question, then, is certainly pertinent, would not our crit- 
ics and fault-finders, therefore, be doing more for the cause of 
intellectual Spiritualism, and for the general advancement of 
truth, .should they, instead of berating our sensitive mediums, 
unite in using their able pens and exerting their well-merited 
influence in endeavoring to bring about a more just and com- 
prehensive view, on the part of the xnasses, as to the law of 
conditions, in kind, and hence more effectual efforts toward the 
education and moral elevation of our mediums ; and in nurtur- 
ing a more generous and decided unity of action on the part 
of the entire body of Spiritualists for the advancement of the 
cause, and the protection of the instrumentalities of the same 
from the peculiar liabilities incidental to their vocation ? 



SPIRITtjALISTS AKD MEDIUMS. 401 

In conclusion, permit me to add that, in saying thus much, I 
do not wish to be understood as in any wise justifying any posi- 
tive wrong-doing that may have been, or that may hereafter be, 
brought home to any of our mediums. I am seeking, however, 
to palliate their alleged, and perhaps actual, misdirections by a 
statement of facts as to mediumistic conditions, and the conduct 
of Spiritualists generally toward them ; and I seek to enjoin 
upon Spiritualists the fact that, as a consequence, they may 
themselves, from the want of a due appreciation of these con 
ditions, have been to a certain extent particeps criminis in the 
causes leading to any of the actual or supposed defects of which 
I have been speaking, and of which so much complaint has 
been made, as I think with unwarrantable harshness. In the 
name of a common brotherhood, therefore, and in behalf of the 
best interests of our common cause, I would earnestly bespeak 
for our mediums of every phase a truer sympathy and a more 
generous judgment. 



LECTURE XXIII. 

TE HAVE BODIES, BUT YE ARE SPIRITS ; THE SPIRIT THE 
REAL MAN. 

"Fair are the flowers and the children, 

But their subtle suggestion is fairer; 
Eare is the roseburst of dawn, 

But the secret that clasps it i.s rarer ; 
Sweet the exuitance of song. 

But the strain that precedes it is sweeter ; 
And never was poem yet writ 

But the meaning out-mastered the meter. 

Never a daisy that grows 

But a mystery guideth the growing ; 
Never a river that flows 

But a majesty scepters the flowing; 
Never a Shakespeare that soared 

But a stronger than he did unfold him ; 
Nor ever a prophet foretells 

But a mightier seer foretold him. 

Back of the canvas that throbs 

The painter is hinted and hidden ; 
Into the statue that breathes 

The soul of the sculptor is bidden; 
Under the joy that is felt 

Lie the infinite issues of feeling ; 
Crowning the glory revealed 

Is the glory that crowns the revealing. 

Great are the symbols of being, 
But that which is symboled is greater; 

Vast the create and beheld, 
But vaster the inward creator; 

(402) 



THE SPIEIT THE REAL MAN. 403 

Back of the sound broods the silence, 

Back of the gift stands the giving ; 
Back of the hand that receives 

Thrills the sensitive nerves of receiving. 

Never a muscle that moved 

But a power behind did impel; 
Never a thought has been uttered 

But a power unseen did excel ; 
Never a sad tear or glad smile 

But echoed the pulsings of soul ; 
Whilst each aspiration of spirit 

Toretells immortality's goal. 

Space is as nothing to spirit, 

The deed is outdone by the doing; 
The heart of the wooer is warm, 

But warmer the heart of the wooing; 
And up from the pits where these shiver, 

And up from the heights where those shine, 
Twin voices and shadows swim starward. 

And the essence of life is divine ! " 

Spiritualism rolls its warm sparkling waves of thought across 
the cold grey sea of material skepticism, just as the Gulf Stream 
weaves its mystic length across the latitudes and the oceans, 
exercising an influence, imperceptible to many perhaps, but none 
the less powerful and extensive because as yet unappreciated in 
its full bearing. For, amid the more exalted enterprises of human 
genius characteristic of the present age, — amid the holier utter- 
ances of the press, the pulpit, and the rostrum, — amid the loftier 
conceptions of the poet, the artist, and the man of letters, — ?the 
mental eye of the spiritual philosopher can perceive the incul- 
cations and direct influences of this school of thous^ht begin- 
ning to manifest themselves with a persistent truthfulness not to 
be mistaken, and with a conclusiveness well nigh irresistible. 
And this condition of things, we are encouraged to believe, will 
be increasingly apparent, as mediumistic facilities are afforded 
for a clearer understanding of its phenomenal presentations, as 



404 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

well as a higher appreciation of the ethical and philosophical 
deductions which are the legitimate sequences of an intelligent 
investigation. 

This glorious system in the first place, as I understand it, 
inculcates, as a basis of all moral and spiritual culture, the exist- 
ence of some great primal cause, apprehended in the terms Infin- 
ite love. Infinite wisdom, and Infinite power, — an eternal princi- 
ple of life, unoriginated and self-derived, — which we call God, 
and know no more ; and it enjoins upon the human mind the 
fact that all true philosophy must undoubtedly rest upon some 
such acknowledgment. 

Spiritualism further teaches that the true dignity of human- 
ity consists in the fact that man is the incarnation of this Deity ; 
that in his spiritual nature, and in all his relations, he is the 
highest individualized expression of the Father Soul of this vast 
macrocosm, the universe which we inhabit ; and that, hence, 
although the evidences of this great truth are too often hidden 
from view, like glittering gold in the depths of an unexplored 
mine, still every human soul, in its inmost essence, is divine, 
and man necessarily immortal from the nature of his origin. In 
this sense, it has been wisely suggested, the good man of Naza- 
reth spoke when he said to his disciples : " I am in the Father, 
and ye in me, and I in you." Having such an exalted view of 
the race. Spiritualism seeks to add no new element to the soul 
with a view to reform, but rather aims toward the evolvement 
to man's outer a consciousness of his inner and purer qualities, 
which have been too long suppressed under the appliances of 
past educational faith. It does not esteem religion as something 
foreign to man's nature, or as a beneficence with which a few 
only are to be endowed by special act of Providence ; but is 
aiming rather to outwork into practical life the religious or de- 
votional element, which is undoubtedly the inherent property 
of the race by legitimate heirship. Thus Spiritualism, properly 
understood, is seeking to establish the highest happiness of the 
human family by educating, elevating, and spiritualizing man's 



THE SPIRIT THE REAL MAN. 405 

conceptions as to the true nature of the human soul in the life 
that now is, as well as its prospective relations and conditions 
as an individualized entity in the life that is to be. For cer- 
tainly the spiritual philosophy would be but a frivolous pursuit 
indeed " did it not subserve some practical aim, unless its issue 
be in some enlarged conception of man's life and destiny." 

The phenomena of Spiritualism have demonstrated man to 
be an individualized spirit, temporarily clothed in flesh. This 
fact the theologies of the past and present practically ignore 
in their advocacy of a physical resurrection, and in their repu- 
diation of the general principles upon which Spiritualism as- 
sumes to rest, as a system worthy the investigation and confi- 
dence of mankind. But theology — and let it be observed, 
once for all, that I by no means use the term theology as synon- 
ymous with religion — actually offers no argument against the 
facts of Spiritualism ; but by random appeals to isolated texts 
of scripture — by ridicule, social ostracism, unwarrantable de- 
nunciation, and even legal prosecution — have sought vainly to 
overthrow a truth imbedded in the very constitution of nature. 
For science and an expanding spiritual perception are demon- 
strating the facts of Spiritualism, and the philosophy legiti- 
mately deducible therefrom, to be in strict accordance with the 
harmonious action of natural law, in so far as the finite mind 
is capable of determining as to the operations of the same in 
and around us. 

In attempting an elucidation of the fact of man's existence 
as a spirit entity while in the material body, — the fact claimed 
in my text as a fundamental tenet of the spiritual school, but 
denied by many who are unwilling to accept of the phenomena 
of Spiritualism as sufficiently satisfactory testimony in favor of 
the same, — permit me, in addition to the phenomenal phases 
familiar to most of you, to offer further testimony by adverting 
somewhat in detail to the wonderful agency exerted in the 
realm of conscious individuality by the nervous system of the 
human body especially, and the important duties devolving upon 



406 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

it in the animal economy, as an efficient agent of the thinking 
principle within, which so evidently animates and controls this 
wonderful piece of machinery amid the conditions of time. 
The substances of which the brain as the center of the nervous 
system consists admittedly constitute the last and highest stage 
of material refinement. This portion of the human frame is 
so exquisitely refined and eliminated that it seemingly exists 
as but a fraction of the bodily formation. And, yet, if the 
nervous system alone were delicately separated from the body, 
it would have the precise form thereof ; for the nerves fill not 
only each tissue of the body but extend even to the enamel of 
the teeth, the fibers of the hair, and even to the shaping of the 
eye. Hence the nerves serve as the instruments of most impor- 
tant uses. Through their agency even the outer skin holds 
connection and communication with all the internal organs. 
The pores of the skin, or perspiratory tubes, serve the purpose 
of a grand system of drainage for the worn-out particles of the 
body, and likewise as pipes conveying nutritious elements into 
the body. They are also the sensitive channels through which 
the aura or spiritual sphere surrounding each individual finds 
its outlet, and are in part the pathways along which impres- 
sions from without are conveyed to the nerve centers, which 
are the channels of intercommunication with the inner or real 
man. 

These nerve fibers, or pores, are spread out into a most 
wonderful network in the cutis vera, or true skin, and are almost 
incredibly numerous."* The palms of the hands, perhaps, have 
the greatest proportionate number, estimated to be about three 
thousand five hundred and twenty-eight to the square inch. 
Hence, the philosophy of placing the hands upon the table, 
when intelligence is produced through physical manifestations 
of that class. This method is adopted for the reason, among 

* The surface of tlae liuman body is covered witli scales like a fish; an ordinary 
grain of sand would cover 150 of these scales; and yet a single scale covers 200 
pores ! 



THE SPIEIT THE REAL MAN. 407 

others, that the electro-mental emaDations of the medium, under 
the propelling influences of the controlling spirit, may the more 
readily interpenetrate the material substance to be acted upon, 
and through which intelligence is to be received. The general 
average of pores and tubes have been estimated at twenty- 
eight hundred to every square inch of the human body;* and 
seven millions of pores have been generally estimated to be the 
number existing upon each ordinarily sized person, — whilst 
the tubes are declared to be each only one-fourth of an inch in 
length. These estimates are thought to be far too small, how- 
ever ; and yet they would give nearly twenty-eight miles of per- 
spiratory tubes. 

Rev. W. F. Evans, of Massachusetts, in his work entitled 
"Mental Cure," published by Colby & Rich, Do^on, — one of 
the most admirable works of the age, — says these estimates are 
six times too small in relation to the length of each tube, and 
at least five times less than the real number of pores to the 
square inch. If so, there are about eight hundred and forty 
miles of these drainage pipes and spherical channels terminat- 
ing in the skin ! Is it any wonder, then, that persons distinct- 
ivel}^ designated as mediums, because of the organic extent and 
impressibility of their spherical relations, should be affected 
either happily or otherwise by all who may approach them 
from either the inner or the outer world? and can you not per- 
ceive from this fact how unjust and unkind even Spiritualists 
have sometimes been to these sensitives in the moral garden of 
Father God and Mother Nature? may we not likewise perceive 
the reason why they often fail as to satisfactory seances, when 
they so arbitrarily combat the alleged necessity of harmonious 
conditions, — thus, as is undoubtedly a fact, often preventing the 
object sought to be attained, as well as injuriously affecting the 
medium by the consequent inharmony ? 

The brain of man, instead of being the mind of man, as has 
been practically taught by the material metaphysician, and but 

* Wilson's Anatomy. 



408 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

faintly, if at all, contradicted by theology, is but the principal 
nerve center, through which the intelligent principle, the soul — > 
as we deduce from the phenomena of Spiritualism — acts upon 
the various organs of the body, and holds communion with the 
outer world of materialism. The brain is, therefore, to the real 
mind or soul what the echo is to the original sound. Its won- 
derfully sensitive machinery responds to every change and 
every impulse of the intelligent soul life within, just as moun- 
tain and valley, hill and dale, echo the encouraging cry of the 
herdsman, or the bleating of the flock. It is but the soul's 
echo that is heard by the outer world ; and, likewise, but the 
counterfeit presentation of the real man we see, as we gaze 
toward each other in time. For, truly, 

"We are spirits clothed in veils, — 
Soul by soul is never seen ; 
All earth's cold communing fails 
To remove from us the screen. 

Man by man is never known, — 
Mind with mind doth never meet; 

We are columns left alone 
Of a temple incomplete." 

Through spiritualistic, as well as scientific, investigation we 
learn further that the brain in its multiplied o|)erations through 
innumerable nerve fibers extends throughout the entire body, 
even to the capillaries at the surface of the skin, to which I 
have referred ; and through the brain and its ramifications the 
intelligent principle or real man is acting, becoming thus inter- 
fused, so to speak, through all the living textures of the organic 
structure. So that the poet was not altogether wrong in de- 
claring of one whom he admired, 

"Her mind was so distinctly wrought, 
'T would seem that e'en her body thought." 

In illustration of this fact, an injury is inflicted at some ex- 
tremity of the physical system, for instance ; intelligence is at 



THE SPIRIT THE REAL MAN. 409 

once telegraphed to the chief nerve center, the brain, from 
whence the feeling and thinking principle within recognizes the 
fact, and by the sensation of pain expresses dissent through the 
outer-consciousness. For the physical body, "per se, is incapable 
of either sensation or thought. Hence, by the permanent ab- 
sence of this soul life, of this ability to think and feel, what is 
called death is produced, and this wonderful machinery, the 
external body, falls to pieces, — brain-matter as well as blood, 
muscle, and bone. But there is no destruction of life thereby, 
as the facts of Spiritualism most emphatically demonstrate. On 
the contrary, this interesting phenomenon, erroneously termed 
death, is but the transference of the soul, the real man, to a 
temple more complete, — the Pantheon of the skies. 

The mechanism of the nerves consists of two portions, the 
fibrous and the vesicular. The nerve fiber is disposed in the 
form of a minute thread, which serves as a medium for the 
transmission of influences from part to part. Nerve fibers are 
of two kinds, the centripetal and the centrifugal. A centripe- 
tal fiber is a nerve of sensation, and conveys influences inwardly 
to the nerve centers, from whence the intelligent life principle, 
the real man, as I have instanced, takes it up, interprets the 
meaning of and acts upon the sensation thus conveyed. A 
centrifugal fiber is a nerve of motion, and, under the influence 
of the same interior principle, is the intermedium between brain 
and muscle. 

The vesicular portion of the nervous system consists of minute, 
grey, granular vesicles, with a dark spot or nucleus near the 
center. A number of these vesicles unitincc toirether constitute 
a nervous arc. A repetition of these arcs coalesced in one body 
forms a ganglionic center, the chief peculiarity of which is that 
it is fitted to receive impressions. 

At the top of the spinal column, or base of the cranium, there 
is an aggregation of these ganglia called the medulla oblongata. 
This is the seat of the involuntary functions of the system, tbe 



410 UN ANSWER ABLE LOGIC. 

nerves of respiration, deglutition, digestion, etc., which are inde- 
pendent of any externally conscious action of the will. 

Above the medulla oblongata is the sensora ganglia, or cere- 
bellum, from which diverge the nerves of special sense, such as 
the auditory, optic, and olfactory. Resting on the sensora 
ganglia is the cerebrum, a large pulpy mass of nerve, which is 
the most refined combination of the elements of matter, and is 
the most delicately organized of any part of this wonderful 
piece of human mechanism. 

The entire body is connected with the brain by means of a 
grand system of ganglionic and sympathetic nerves, every organ 
being united to every other, the whole operated upon and through 
by the intelligent principle within, the immortal soul or spirit, 
which, as 1 have said, the phenomena of Spiritualism have demon- 
strated to be an individualized entity, the real man. The soul 
operating in the microcosm of the body, through the agency of 
the nervous system, just as all around us today homesteads and 
places of business are connected, the one with the other, hamlet 
with hamlet, city with city, and continent with continent, by 
means of the telegraphic and telephonic systems, with which hu- 
man thought in the present age has " clasped a girdle round the 
world," whilst electricity has become the errand-boy of human- 
ity. The simile is complete ; for it is a truth that brain, muscle, 
sinew, and nerve are as dead and expressionless as are tele- 
graph poles and telephone wires without that animated and 
animating principle denominated mind or soul, the originator and 
dispenser of the thoughts and sounds conveyed. 

Medical science, as I have shown, assigns three compartments 
to the brain of man, which Spiritualism designates as the promi- 
nent nerve centers, through which the intelligent principle is 
manifested in the body of man, and which the phenomena of 
Spiritualism demonstrate to be an individualized spirit, acts in 
and upon the material body, and the world surrounding it ; so 
that man may be said to have three brains ; the upper compart- 
ment is the cerebrum, as stated (or large brain), composed of 



THE SPIRIT THE REAL MAN. 411 

the two kinds of nerve substance referred to, the grey or ash- 
colored, and the white or fibrous ; secondly, man has the cere- 
bellum (or little brain), containing both kinds of cerebral sub- 
stance, but differently arranged ; although smaller in size, the 
cerebellum has far more activity than the cerebrum ; and, thirdly, 
man has the primitive brain, the medulla oblongata, which phy- 
sicians will tell you is the first formed in the human foetus, and 
that the other portions of the cerebral system proceed from it in 
order. The medulla oblongata, we are told, is much smaller than 
the cerebellum, but a myriad times more sensitive and active ; 
and advanced clairvoyants declare that millions of pure white 
rays, or minute nerve fibers, are constantly darting seemingly, 
and leading from this nerve center in every direction to every 
part of the physical system. The outward manifestations of 
the soul or spirit through these three distinct brains have been 
appropriately termed the three degrees of mental activities com- 
prehended under the general heads of intellectual, emotional, and 
vital. The intelligent principle, both observation and science 
declare, may, and does, at times act through either of these com- 
partments separately. From this truth, considered in connec- 
tion with the facts and the philosophy of Spiritualism, the solu- 
tion of many of the enigmas of existence may be more nearly 
arrived at, whilst a clearer conception may be attained, as to 
the relation which the immortal principle or real man within 
sustains to the wonderful machinery of the brain. Sleep, for 
instance, " that knits up the raveled sleave of care "; the mys- 
teries of dreamland ; somnambulism ; lunacy, with its terrible 
associations : the trance ; and even death, so called, of which 
sleep is but the younger brother, and so like him that some 
writer has said he dare not trust him without his prayers, — all 
alike find a proximate solution, at least, in this sadly misunder- 
stood and grossly misrepresented system called Spiritualism. 

But let us examine somewhat, although but briefly, this 
claim of a proximate solution of some of the experiences of time. 
Anatomists tell us that the cerebrum, which, as I have said, is 



412 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

the principle compartment of the brain used by the soul in our 
outwardly wakeful and active intellectual experiences, becomes 
inactive and quiescent during sleep ; and medical science asserts 
further that, in cases of fracture of the upper section of the 
human skull, when a portion of the cranium has been removed, 
the intellectual pulsations or activities of the cerebrum have 
been observed to cease entirely, — as if, which is indeed the fact, 
the ruling spirit of the organism, or the man himself, had 
changed his vital action to the cerebellum, or the medulla oblon- 
gata, in order that the proper remedies might be applied to 
counteract the defect in this important portion of the machinery, 
especially designed by the Infinite Architect for the intellectual 
uses of time. And, in sleep, as I -have said, the cerebrum is 
inactive, except just at the moment between waking and sleep- 
ing, when you seemingly enter what is called the mysterious 
land of dreams. 

The different theories of dreams presented at various times 
by material metaphysicians and theologians, it seems to me, are 
exceedingly fallacious when viewed from a spiritual standpoint. 
A theory in accordance with the established facts of Spiritual- 
ism is much more rational than any hitherto presented. Thus, 
during sleep, the spirit or soul being the real man, holding 
sympathetic or magnetic connection with the body through 
the cerebellum or medulla oblongata, one or both leaves the 
cerebrum inactive, as medical science affirms that it is, and 
wanders forth into the inner or spiritual realm, which is more 
congenial to its vital needs, gathering spiritual pabulum, so to 
speak, for its sustenance and strength during the next day's 
bodily incarceration. And duinng these wanderings how often 
is it that we realize actual communion with beloved ones long 
since reported dead, whom Spiritualism, however, so clearly 
proves to be still living, and even more loving than in former 
years ? Thus, too, when we lie with darkness all around us in 
the outer world, no sight or sound to wake up memory, things 
long forgotten by the outer consciousness, faces that no effort 



THE SPIRIT THE REAL MAN". 413 

of the waking mind could call before the eye of fancy, voices 
that have long ceased to ring in the ear of forgetfulness, come 
upon us all, strong and vivid as reality ; and likewise even the 
feelings no longer suited to our state of being, such as the joys 
and past times of our early boyhood or girlhood, and even the 
prattled pleasures of our baby days. Yet, there they all are 
at times, bright as in life, — conscious, waking life. At other 
times, with the revived images, voices and loves of other days 
are mingled wilder and more objectionable experiences, seem- 
ingly cast into mad array by some fantastic power of dream- 
land, such as we suffer from what is termed nightmare, etc. 
This confusion, as well as the more agreeable experiences 
named, are all accounted for in the fact that what are termed 
dreams are but the partial and momentary impressions of the 
spirit upon the aroused cerebrum or outer consciousness on its 
return from its wanderings ; and these impressions or dreams 
are harmonious or otherwise proportioned to the condition of 
the different bodily organs holding sympathetic relations with 
the cerebrum, of which in this connection the stomach is the 
most important. If the stomach has been disordered by im- 
prudence of any kind, the dreams are correspondingly inhar- 
monious and unpleasant. Indeed, so intimately connected are 
the stomach and brain that the latter is being constantly influ- 
enced more or less deleteriously by the former, whether awake 
or sleeping. The stomach, in fact, is wretchedly imposed on 
through rapid eating, and by the indigestible and improper arti- 
cles of food we so thoughtlessly and frequently put into it. 
This is so much the case that dyspepsia and consequent brain 
affections, physicians will tell you, have become national dis- 
eases in America. 

So direct and positive are the sympathetic relations between 
these two organs, and the consequent baleful effects upon the 
one by the abuse of the other, that Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
in one of his works, very forcibly remarks that " a severe 
attack of dyspepsia is sufficient to change the whole theology 



414 TJiTANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

of the world in the mind of a patient." Carrying out the 
same idea, my own opinion is that Calvin must have been a 
life-long dyspeptic, with his brain correspondingly affected, be- 
fore the promulgation of such horrible conceptions as charac- 
terize his ideas of God's dealings with his children I Such 
being the evident connection between these two important 
organs of the outer encasement of the active intelligent prin- 
ciple within, through which external manifestations are neces- 
sarily made, no wonder that when the brain has been seriously 
disturbed by abuse of the stomach, this individualized soul, the 
real man, finds so much difficulty in correctly impressing upon 
the outer consciousness the result of its experiences during its 
temporary absence, while the cerebrum is at rest, as I have 
shown ; and that unpleasant dreams, nightmare, and sometimes 
fever and other ills, are the legitimate consequences. A dream, 
therefore, in all its bearings is one of the most direct evidences 
of the existence of man as a spirit entity while still encased 
within the earthly body ; and is, likewise, additional evidence 
in favor of a fact too often forgotten that, in what are called 
Christian and civilized lands, man is wretchedly deficient in the 
practical cultivation of a physical religion at least. 

The dreadful imaginings of lunacy, likewise, when obsession 
is not the primal cause, together with the sad results of what is 
termed softening of the brain, are similarly accounted for, as to 
their inception at least. In this connection we have a most 
consolatory assurance through spirit communion, and likewise 
a further confirmation of the distinct individuality of the inner 
man. The intelligent principle, or spiritual man, we are assured 
by the dear ones gone before, is but relatively affected by the 
terrible outer manifestations of lunacy and aberration of mind 
in this sphere. And with what consolation does this intelli- 
gence come from the angels to the suffering hearts of human- 
ity ! Ye who have mourned the mental desolation and dark- 
ness of a beloved father, or mother, or wife, or husband, or 
child, or friend ; ye who, in gazing upon the senseless eve of 



THE SPIRIT THE REAL MAN. 415 

lunacy, have supposed the past obliterated in the crazed remi- 
niscences of the beloved, and that the endearing scenes and 
incidents of that past which made earth lovely and life endur- 
able, have all been swallowed up in the maelstrom of fantastic 
imagery, think so no longer. Spiritualism demonstrates that 
the life within, the real or spiritual man, is not permanently 
affected by these outer manifestations, which are but the de- 
fects of the material organization ; that within the inner tem- 
ple is an unerring record kept, and that when the outer cover- 
ing shall be torn away, when the beautiful spirit, by the agency 
of death (so called) shall emerge from the muddy and decaying 
coat of earth, and the relative effects of the defects of time 
shall have been obliterated through the law of progress, then 
again, in another and a brighter sphere, shall the treasures of 
the heart be restored ; then again shall the eye sparkle with 
the tear of soul sympathy, whilst its warm pulsings tell of a 
memory and a love and an individuality that have kept an inte- 
rior and indelible record throughout the seemingly dark night 
of extinct or deranged faculties, — which record shall again 
appear fresh and beautiful, when God's pale angel shall have 
liberated the soul from this Egyptian night of time, and the 
real man shall have ascended from the body, 

*' Along that grand triumphal arch, 
Through which the good to glory march." 

Somnambulism, likewise, that strange act of life apart from 
what we distinctively term waking life ; that mystery of mys- 
teries to the material scientist, when the soul seems severed 
from all things on earth but the body which it inhabits ; when 
the external mind evidently sleeps, or, as medical science 
affirms, when the cerebrum is quiescent and altogether inactive, 
while some interior principle of intelligence wakes ; when the 
animal body and this interior principle live and act together, 
while the intellectual or educated portion of the wonderful piece 
of machinery which we call man lies inactive and seemingly 



416 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

dead for the time, — this strange phenomenon likewise finds its 
best solution in the hypotheses of this modern pneumatology. 
Somnambulism, although declared by physiologists to be a state 
of sleep, and which is really so as far as the cerebrum or the 
external consciousness is concerned, Spiritualism declares is 
actually a condition of the clearest wakefulness to the inner 
life or spirit. This vital principle, acting chiefly through the 
organs of vital motion in connection with the cerebellum and 
the medulla oblongata, one or both, whilst the upper portion 
of the brain or the cerebrum, as I have said, is in a state of 
coma or sleep, sees and thinks spiritually without the inter- 
vention of the ordinarily wakeful agent of thought ; and sees 
and thinks far more clearly at times than it generally does 
through the thinking channel of the material encasement, 
affected as this too frequently is by the disturbed condition of 
the bodily organs, or by the usual confusion of the wakeful 
world with which it is continually en rapport. 

The condition of somnambulism is akin to that of the trance. 
The trance condition, however, as exhibited in the phenomena 
of Spiritualism, varies in proportion to organizational and other 
individual and surrounding conditions, being more or less pro- 
found in different persons, with the presiding spirit more or 
less individually active. In some cases the resident spirit gives 
place entirely to another intelligence for the time being. In 
others the resident spirit holds its vital connection with the 
physical organism through the medulla oblongata, leaving a 
more positive and brighter spirit it may be to control the organs 
of thought and feeling, through the cerebrum and the cerebel- 
lum, upon a higher plane than it could itself, for the benefit of 
humanity. In others, and perhaps the most advanced degree 
of entrancement, the intellectual and spiritual faculties, through 
spiritual association and culture, are illuminated and elevated 
into the utterance of the grandest thoughts and loftiest concep- 
tions in a relatively normal or natural state. In others, still, 
the trance is more profound; all vitality has seemingly de- 



THE SPIRIT THE REAL MAN. 417 

parted, whilst the resident spirit, through the organs of vital 
motion, holding only an electro-sympathetic connection with the 
body, is enabled to visit other localities in this sphere, together 
with other and more congenial climes beyond the boundaries of 
mere material appreciation. 

The next condition beyond the profound trance is the state 
termed death, which it very much resembles in its outward 
appearance. Viewed in the glorious light reflected from the 
demonstrated truths of Spiritualism, however, such as the con- 
tinuity of life and the consequent perpetuity of individual con- 
sciousness and individual affection beyond the grave, there is no 
death ; what is termed such is but the transition of the aspiring 
individual soul to a higher life, where, independent of the bodily 
organs altogether, its loftiest powers will be called into the full- 
est exercise, and its highest aspirations find the most unlimited 
realization. For, indeed, as the facts of Spiritualism have 
clearly demonstrated, 

"There is no death ! The stars go down 
To rise upon some other shore, 
And bright in heaven's jeweled crown 
They shine forever more. 

And ever near us, though unseen, 

The clear, immortal spirits tread ; 
For all the boundless universe 

Is life, — there are no dead!" 

Thus you doubtless perceive from this necessarily brief ref- 
erence to the machinery of the body and its uses, under the 
direction of some intelligent principle within that is evidently 
superior in its functions to any of the known qualities of mat- 
ter, that both physiological facts and individual experience and 
observation sustain the general proposition with which I set 
out, as to the source of vitality and thought exhibited in and 
through the splendid mechanism of the human body, — or, in 
other words, that ye have bodies but ye are spirits, as the facts 



418 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

of Spiritualism most emphatically demonstrate. And, in fur- 
ther illustration of this fact, do we not all feel and know that 
in this world nothing fully contents or satisfies the aspiring 
part of our nature, — the inner man ? The happiest and most 
complete life on earth, considered in the abstract, is a mon- 
strous failure, since the jewel of contentment is no where to be 
found. From the " puling infant " in its mother's arms to the 
ambitious tyrant weeping for new worlds to conquer ; from the 
youth, struggling to reach the pinnacle where fame's proud tem- 
ple shines afar, to the majestic philosopher unlocking some of 
the profoundest mysteries of the universe, and proclaiming him- 
self but a child upon the shore, with the vast ocean of truth 
unexplored beyond him, — all bespeak the insufficiency of earthly 
attainments and earthly enjoyments. Never are the ideal affec- 
tions of the soul fully realized by the offerings of earth, nor 
can individual character attain to the standard of the soul's 
imaginings. 

If the soul, as I have briefly shown, is thus possessed of such 
a distinct individuality while still encased in flesh, together with 
such marked powers as the facts of Spiritualism and the truths 
of science demonstrate, who shall dare to deny the continued 
existence of this individuality and of these powers when the 
body has been laid aside forever ? Is it not rather a great truth, 
as I have been endeavoring to enforce, that the soul or spirit is 
that individualized power within the material encasement which 
is seen by the external eye, not in its substance, but in its 
effects ? — a power which comprehends the intelligence, the 
affection, and the ceaseless aspirations which constitute the true 
effective man, and which on the death of the material body 
s-urvives as an organic whole, parting with nothing that is essen- 
tial to its emotional, moral, and intellectual existence. The use 
of the physical body is to administer to the individualization 
growth and development of the powers and faculties of the 
spiritual body, to which all nature is made contributory and 
subservient. As the soul matures its spiritual form within the 



THE SPIRIT THE REAL MAN. 419 

physical body, penetrating its every tissue and fiber, the spirit- 
ual form assumes the features and form of its material encase- 
ment, its voice, aspect, and manner, as well as its character, 
moral and mental, — relatively proportioned, of course, to its 
increased refinement and freedom from physical disease and 
deformity. In time, old age or disease approaches, and it be- 
comes apparent that the external body is gradually ceasing to 
be of use to the inner man. At length the voice becomes 
externally silent, the eye sightless, and the pulse of the outer 
encasement stands still, as the real man, releasing himself from 
the embrace of the now useless form, ascends therefrom in all 
the freshness and beauty of immortal youth ; and this state has 
been ignorantly and sadly miscalled death ! 

In conclusion : you enter the studio of an earthly artist ; you 
see before you a well-executed statue of clay ; it is the figure of 
a man ; you gaze upon it with intensity, and strive to recognize 
the features of some distinguished person whom your country 
may have delighted to honor, or some friend dear to memory. 
While you are thus contemplating it, the artist silently approaches 
and, taking a hammer in his hand, suddenly strikes it a violent 
blow. You are startled, and ready to utter an exclamation of 
angry remonstrance, when your words are arrested by the fall- 
ing clay, and the disclosure of an exquisitely beautiful image of 
gold ! The artist explains that the clay statue which so inter- 
ested you was nothing but a temporary mold, the sole end and 
use of which was to produce this wonderful specimen of taste 
and art which, far more than the clay statue, now calls forth 
your admiration. The body of man, as illustrated by the facts 
of Spiritualism, is represented by that clay statue ; and its flesh 
and bone, together with the brain and nerve of which I have 
been speaking, are just as destitute of conscious life as the 
crumbling image. The spiritual man within it is that alone 
gives them the appearance of vitality ; and as this inert cover- 
ing of time, struck by the hammer of death, falls to pieces and 
mingles again with its kindred elements, the impersonalized 



420 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

divinity from within emerges into more enlarged activities and 
sublimer possibilities as it is removed from this earthly studio 
to the galleries of the Infinite Artificer, where, amid unending 
felicities and expanding capacities, its course shall be upward 
and onward forever along the celestial pathway where bright- 
eyed stars are singing their everlasting anthems. 
And now permit me to repeat — 

"Oh, have you not seen, on some morning in June, 
When the flowers were in tears, and the forests in tune, 
When the billows of morn broke bright on the air, 
On the breast of the brightest, some star floating there, — 
Some sentinel star, not ready to set, 
Forgetting to wane, and watching there yet? 

How you gazed on the vision of beauty the while ; 
Hosv it wavered, till won by the light of God's smile ! 
How it passed through the portals of pearl, like a bride ; 
How it paled as it passed, and the morning star died. 
So the spirits of earth pass away from life's even ; 
So the blush of their being is blended with heaven. 

We shall know them again by the sweet songs they sing : 
We shall know them again by the bright truths they bring ; 
By the heaven in their eye, by the light on their hair; 
By the smile they wore here, and will ever wear there." 



LECTURE XXIV. 

THE UNITY OF GOD. 

There are three which bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the 
Holy Ghost ; and these three are one. — Fii-st Epistle John, v. 7. 
I and my Father are one. — Gospel of John, x., 30. 

I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.— Gospel of John, xiv., 20. 
For my Father is greater than I. — Gospel of John, xiv., 28. 

One of the ablest of the British essayists (himself a Protest- 
ant) has very forcibly said : " There is not, and there never 
was, a work of human polity so well deserving of examination 
as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of this Church, 
joins together the two great ages of civilization. This is the 
only institution left standing the history of which carries the 
mind back to the period when the smoke of sacrifice arose in 
the Pantheon, and when the tiger and the leopard bounded in the 
Flavian amphitheater. The proudest of the royal houses of Eu- 
rope are as but yesterday in comparison with the line of her pon- 
tiffs. The history of that line carries the mind along the pathway 
of the ages, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nine- 
teenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth ; 
and far beyond the time of Pepin, until well nigh lost in the twi- 
light of fable. She saw the rise of all the governments and 
church institutions that now exist in Europe and America. 
She was great and respected before the Saxon set foot in Britain, 
and before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian 
eloquence flourished in Antioch, and when idols were still wor- 
shiped in the temple of Mecca." Yet, what we can consider as 
the prominent defect of this wonderful institution is the boast 

(421) 



422 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

that in this age of remarkably intellectual and spiritual devel- 
opment " she stands today where she stood centuries ago." 

" The history of the last seven hundred years in Europe," 
adds the author alluded to, " followed by the history in America, 
clearly evinces that the general mind has been progressing in 
every department of secular thought. But in religion you can 
trace no constant progress. Several times since the organiza- 
tion of the Church in Western Christendom the intellect of 
man has arrayed itself against the power of the Catholic Church ; 
and not always, even in past centuries, did she come from the 
conflict unscathed." 

During the age immediately preceding the religious conflict 
terminating in the organization of the Protestant Church, the 
Papal court at Eome had become a scandal to the Christian 
name. History tells us this, and that the leading minds of the 
Church, such as Leo X., had adopted the atheistical and scoff- 
ing tendencies of the Augustan age. But, when her dogmas 
began to be attacked, when doctrine after doctrine was assailed, 
and when nation after nation withdrew from the acknowledg- 
ment of her spiritual dominion, it became apparent that such 
leaders were not sufficient for the control and development of 
her power. Better men, however, arose, more spiritual and 
sincere, — such as Paul IV., Pius V., Gregory XIIL, and as 
were the leaders so the people became. As a sequence, while 
the Protestant religion was gaining adherents at one extremity 
of Europe a Catholic revival was being carried on as rapidly at 
the other. But, alas, for the true spiritual progress of both 
branches, neither relied sufficiently upon moral and spiritual 
force ; but, in their mistaken zeal, resorted to the sword for the 
propagation of their principles. The Inquisition especially was 
revived with new powers, and inspired with new energy ; and, 
though seemingly prosperous, the mother Church was at that 
very time sowing some of the seed that has since ultimated in 
disaster after disaster, until her temporal power, at least, has 
been entirely overthrown. With the fall of Napoleon III., his 



THE UNITY OF GOD. 423 

imperial ally, the Pope was left without an efficient supporter. 
Italy at once sprang to arms to deliver the unhappy Romans 
and expel the French garrison from the eternal city. The Pope 
has been deprived of his temporal authority ; the Inquisition is 
dead; and Victor Emanuel has established the capitol of his 
empire within the walls of Rome, despite the decrees of the self- 
styled " Vicars of God." 

Such is the condition of this wonderful institution today at 
the metropolis of her spiritual empire. What is to be the 
future of the mother Church in our own country, under the 
influence of the progressive spirit of the age, recurring events 
must determine, whilst, in a land of free thought, all must form 
their individual opinions as time advances and the develop- 
ments of the hour arise. In attacking one of her dogmas, how- 
ever, as I am about to do, T do not wish to be understood as 
condemning all of her tenets, or as wanting in respect for the 
principles of truth that underlie many of the items of her faith, 
for a beautiful vein of spirituality evidently courses throughout 
her teachings, although well nigh covered with the dust of the 
darker ages, and very essentially counteracted by the deleterious 
influences arising from her ideas of Church authority. 

The dogma of the Trinity taught by the Catholic Church 
since the opening of the fifth century, and which has been bor- 
rowed by most of the Protestant Churches, as extracted from 
what is called the Athanasian creed, reads as follows, and is 
received by all that class termed Evangelical Christians : — 

" Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy 
Ghost. 

" The Father is Almighty, the Son is Almighty, and the 
Holy Ghost is Almighty. 

"And yet there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. 

" He, therefore, that would be saved must thus think of the 
Trinity." 

In connection with this dogma of the "Adorable Trinity" 
are inculcated the following theories : The Supreme God begat 



424 TJNAKSWERABLE LOGIC. 

from all eternity a Son equal to Himself ; from these two pro- 
ceeds a third, equal to the first ; and these three Gods, equal in 
perfection, divinity, and power, form nevertheless, as the creed 
says, only one God. And this is what theologians term " the 
mystery of the God-head." 

The second person of these three Gods in one, having clad 
himself with human nature, and become incarnate in the womb 
of a virgin, we are told, submitted himself to the infirmities of 
humanity, and even suffered an ignominious death to expiate 
the alleged sins of the race. This is what theologians call the 
mystery of incarnationr: 

And we are commanded further to believe in connection with 
the dogma of the Trinity that a God, having become man with- 
out doing injury to his divine nature, has suffered and died for 
the sins of man, thus offering himself a sacrifice to himself ; and 
that this was absolutely and indispensably necessary in order to 
appease his own wrath. And this is what theologians call the 
mystery of redemption. 

Such are the " sublime mysteries " connected with the dogma 
of the Trinity, which are being taught by the Catholic Church 
and most of the Protestant Churches today, for the non-accept- 
ance of which mankind are to be condemned to everlasting tor- 
ment. And through the force of educational faith many persons 
in Christendom honestly believe this doctrine of the Trinity to 
have been the original faith of the early Christians, and that it 
is besides a sound Biblical doctrine. Yet, it- is nevertheless a 
fact that many of the best writers upon this theme agree in 
admitting that this doctrine rests rather upon the authority of 
the Fathers of the Church than upon the Bible for its existence. 

It is generally understood, I suppose, that the spiritual school 
ignores this doctrine of the Trinity as taught in most of the 
churches of the land, whilst they are gratefully appreciative of 
the universal presence of an Infinite God, one and indivisible, 
omnipotent and inexplicable. They are instructed and sus- 
tained in this belief by lessons from purer minds, flowing to them 



THE UNITY OF GOD. 425 

through natural law from the regions above them, and stealing 
gently into their receptive but hitherto doubting and distrustful 
souls. And they are likewise sustained in their convictions in 
this respect, and in their rejection of the theological idea, by 
the ecclesiastical history of the past. In substantiation of this 
assumption, I propose adverting to this history in order that we 
may perceive the slight foundation upon which has rested for so 
many centuries a doctrine at war with reason, contrary to the 
highest intuitions of the soul, and utterly subversive of any true 
conception of the infinite attributes of a Divine Father. 

Permit me first, however, to consider the true signification 
and legitimacy of the different texts repeated in your hearing. 
And first, " There are three that bear record in Heaven, the 
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are 
one." This text is frequently quoted, as you are aware, as infal- 
lible testimony in favor of the doctrine of the Trinity, the more 
especially by that class who professedly believe that the King 
James version of the Bible (the one in use among English and 
American Protestants) is verbatim the revealed will of heaven. 

And, yet, the testimony of profound thinkers and able writers, 
as well as accomplished scholars, has satisfied many candid 
inquirers that this text is unmistakably a forgery. The follow- 
ing facts are cited in proof of this declaration : 1st, it is not con- 
tained in the Greek manuscript of the New Testament, which 
was written earlier than the fifteenth century ; 2nd, nor in any 
Latin manuscript earlier than the ninth century ; 3rd, it is not 
found in any of the ancient versions ; 4th, it is not cited by any 
of the Greek ecclesiastical writers, though, to prove the doctrine 
of the Trinity, they have cited the words both before and after 
it ; 5th, it is not cited by any of the early Latin Fathers, even 
when the subject upon which they treat would naturally have 
led them to appeal to its authority ; 6th, it is first cited by Vir- 
gilius Tapsensis, a Latin writer of no credit, in the latter end 
of the fifth century, and by him it is supposed to have been 
forged ; 7th, it has been omitted, as spurious, in many of the 



426 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

editions of the New Testament since the Reformation, — in the 
first two of Erasmus, in those of Aldus Colinoeus, Zwinglius, 
and more lately of Griesbach ; 8th, it was omitted by Luther 
in his German version. In the old English Bibles of Henry 
VIIL, Edward VL, and Elizabeth, it was printed in small type, 
or included in brackets ; but between the years 1566 and 1680 
it began to be printed as it now stands, by whose authority is 
not known. 

There are those, however, who would still defend the doctrine 
of the Trinity as taught, notwithstanding such fraud as this has 
been resorted to, with a view to its establishment as a dogma, 
resting their faith, perhaps, upon the other texts repeated in 
your hearing. With regard to these texts, likewise, all faith 
in the doctrine of the Trinity will be found to be groundless 
when their legitimate signification is properly arrived at. " I 
and my Father are one," Jesus declared, and this declaration is 
relied on by the Trinitarian as partly corroborative, at least, of 
his theory. But his reliance is not warranted by a proper un- 
derstanding of the original. Greek scholars will tell you, and 
with truth, that the Greek word translated one in this text is in 
the neuter gender, and cannot therefore be properly interpreted 
as applying to a person or being, but must be legitimately un- 
derstood as conveying the idea of one object to be accomplished, 
or rather as one in purpose or design. So, also, with the word 
"one" in the first text, the same remark applying to both. 
Thus far, then, there is no Biblical authority for the dogma of 
the Trinity. Of the other texts, the last two named, I shall 
speak at the proper time. 

Permit me now to inquire as to what reliance is to be placed 
upon the "authority of councils," to which reference is so often 
made by a portion of that class of minds who propose to per- 
petuate what we must be excused for terming the mathematical 
absurdity of " three in one." Let it not be understood, how- 
ever, that this reference is made with the view of enforcing reli- 
ance upon the authority of the past in matters appertaining to 



THE UNITY OP GOD. 427 

the soul and its destiny, except in so far as the declarations of 
past ages shall comport with the demonstrations of the present. 
On the contrary, I hold that the individual soul, with its won- 
derful intuitional and impressional capacities, is its own highest 
revelator of God's truth unto itself. Hence this advertency to 
the authority of the past is made alone, that I may meet the 
advocate of the Trinity with arguments from his own platform, 
— arguments against his position, and in favor of my own, as 
to the unity of God. 

It will be remembered by the reader of ecclesiastical history 
that the Christian Fathers were by no means remarkable for 
the practice of those precepts that characterized the teachings of 
the Man of Peace, whose professed followers they were ; nor 
were they behind the sectarians of the present day in the mani- 
festation of the spirit of bitterness. Controversy arose very 
early after the dawn of the Christian era, and continued for 
centuries. The history of those early centuries enumerates 
over seventy different sects of Christians, all claiming the same 
source and fountain of faith. Some of these differences have 
been transmitted down to the present day, and are still the 
sources of disputation and hate amongst the membership of sec- 
tarian churches. One question of disagreement among the 
Fathers was with reference to the probable duration of punish- 
ment in the hereafter. This question, as you are aware, has 
come down to modern times with attendant bitterness among 
different classes of Christians. Spiritualists, however, have risen 
above this controversy in ceasing to look upon the dealings of 
God with his children as punitive, in the theological sense of 
the term. In looking at man as a normal being, sustaining a 
normal relation to the external universe and its Infinite Ruler, 
the Spiritualist is enabled, through angelic culture, to perceive 
a higher and purer and more invariable law of responsibility 
than that arbitrary one which represents our Heavenly Father 
as dealing with us on worse terms even than would a passion- 
ate and earthly parent. Man's responsibility for sin, we are 



428 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

told by the angels, is as inflexible and inescapable as any law 
of God. It is the relation of cause and effect, which is never 
broken ; and, through the operations of the same law, we are 
taught to believe happiness will be eventually evolved from out 
even the darkest conditions. 

Another point of difference between the Fathers was as to 
whether the doctrine of the unity of God should be declared to 
be orthodox or otherwise. The bishops who favored the doc- 
trine of the unity of God were called Arians, from the name of 
their acknowledged leader, Arius. Those who contended for 
the consubstantiality or equality of the Son with the Father 
were led and represented by Athanasius. The personality of 
the Holy Ghost was not suggested in council for more than 
fifty years after the controversy commenced as to the equality 
of the Son. 

Catholicism and modern orthodox churches among the Protest- 
ants generally agree in the present day that this controversy was 
legitimately settled by the authority of councils ; and there is a 
general union of sentiment in the denunciation of Arianism as 
heresy, and also in allegations of infidelity against modern Uni- 
tarianism, which partakes of the ancient heresy of Arian. But 
the truth is Arianism was not dislodged from the minds of that 
age by the exercise of reason on the part of its opponents, or in 
the practice of the principles of love, so characteristic of the 
beautiful Nazarene, whom both ancient and modern Trinitarians 
profess to follow. On the contrary, the adherents of the same 
conception of Deity, after continued physical persecution on the 
part of the Trinitarians, were finally dispersed amid the Goths 
of Spain, during the first half of the fifth century. But, let us 
refer to the history of these ancient churchly organizations to- 
gether with the ecclesiastical polity of the early centuries of the 
Christian era, in order that we may arrive at a legitimate con- 
clusion in regard to the position which I have assumed in regard 
to the unity of God, viz., that this idea was the original faith of 
the early Christians, prior to the establishment of the theological 



THE UNITY OF GOD. 429 

dogma of the Trinity, which was brought about by physical 
force, and the undue exercise of priestly rule, rather than 
through the cultivation and expansion of the intellectual and 
spiritual capacities of the race. 

According to history, you will find that in the year 322 Alexan- 
der, Bishop of Alexandria, held a council of nearly one hundred 
Egyptian bishops, who condemned Arius as guilty of heresy. 

In 323 Eusebius of Nicomedia, and other bishops, held a 
council in Bithynia, and pronounced Arius orthodox. 

In 324 Hosius held a council at Alexandria, and did all that 
he could toward reconciling conflicting opinions among his 
brethren, but pronounced no ultimate decision. 

In 325 the Council of Nice was held, which, through the 
influence of the crimson-handed Constantine, decided in favor 
of the doctrine of Athanasius. 

In 335 the Council of Tyre was held, at which there were 
sixty eastern bishops. Athanasius came with forty Egyptian 
bishops ; but he was forced to appear as a criminal, and the 
council pronounced against him a sentence of deposition. 

In the same year the council of Jerusalem was held, at which 
Arius was received, and his opinions recognized as orthodox. 

In 338 a council at Constantinople deposed the presiding 
bishop, and elected Eusebius of Nicomedia in his stead, on 
account of his adherence to the doctrine of Arius. 

In 340 a council at Alexandria decided in favor of the doc- 
trine of Athanasius. 

In 341 a council at Rome acquitted Athanasius of the sen- 
tence of deposition pronounced against him by the Council of 
Tyre in 335. 

Immediately afterward Eusebius and his friends held a coun- 
cil, or synod, at Antioch, chose one Gregory to fill the see at 
Alexandria, which had been assigned to Athanasius, and sent 
him to seize upon it by main force. Athanasius hearing of this 
fled to Rome. 

In 342 a council was held at Antioch, which declared the 



430 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

opinions of Arius to be orthodox ; and made a confession of 
faith which omitted the Athanasian doctrine of the consubstan- 
tiality of the Son with the Father. 

In 345 another council was held at Antioch, which was ortho- 
dox, or Athanasian. 

In 347 the Council of Sardica was held, at which there were 
one hundred bishops from the west and seventy-three from the 
east. Those from the east declared they would not sit in 
council unless Athanasius and his adherents were condemned, 
and excluded from ecclesiastical communion. To this demand 
the western bishops refused to accede, and the eastern bishops 
withdrew ; and assembling at Philippopolis, they wrote a letter, 
dating it at Sardica, addressed to all the bishops of the world, 
charging upon Athanasius, and Marcellus his adherent, very 
great wickedness. 

In 353 the Council of Aries was held, which subscribed to 
the condemnation of Athanasius. A few of the bishops refused 
so to subscribe, and were banished. 

In 355 the Council of Milan was held, consisting of three 
hundred bishops, who condemned Athanasius. 

In 341 a council had been held at Sirmium, which was ortho- 
dox ; but in 357 the second Council of Sirmium was held, in 
which the word " consubstantial " was rejected, and the Father 
declared to be greater than the Son. 

In 358 another council was held at Antioch, under Eudox- 
ius. Bishop of Antioch, which condemned the word " consub- 
stantial," or equal, as applicable to Father and Son. 

In 359 a third council was held at Sirmium, which was 
orthodox. 

In 360 the Council of Constantinople was held, which adopted 
a semi-Arian creed, rejecting the term substance as applicable 
to Christ. 

In 361 the Synod of Antioch declared that the Son of God 
was not at all like his Father in substance, and that he was cre- 
ated of nothing. 



THE UITITY OF GOD. 431 

The next five councils held — one at Alexandria in 362, one 
in Italy the same year, one in Egypt in 363, one in Antioch the 
same year, and one in Lampsacus in 365 — were all Athana- 
sian. 

The bishops who favored Arianism also held a number of 
councils after the year 365. One was held at Smyrna, one in 
the province of Pamphylia, another in Isauria, and another in 
Lycia. The result of all these, it is stated by historians, was 
a reconciliation with the churches* entertaining the orthodox or 
Athanasian faith. Their letters, however, are not extant. 

In 368 a council was held through the Emperor Yalens, 
which was Arian. 

This was followed by the Council of Rome, under Damasus, 
which published a synodical letter against the Arians. 

Finally, the Council of Constantinople was held in 381, which 
decided in favor of the equality of the Son with the Father ; 
and likewise decided in favor of the personality of the Holy 
Ghost, for the first time. 

The councils thus hurriedly enumerated do not comprise the 
whole number that met during the fourth century of the Chris- 
tian era. During this century there were nineteen councils 
that decided in favor of the doctrine of Athanasius, the equal- 
ity of the Son with the Father ; and nineteen councils that 
decided in favor of the doctrine of Arius, the unity of God. 

The doctrine of the Trinity, although adopted by the Coun- 
cil of Constantinople, as I have said, in the year 381, did not 
become the universally accepted faith of the Church until dur- 
ing the first part of the fifth century, and not even then until 
physical force had accomplished its work of bitter persecution. 
From these facts it is clearly inferable that the mind of the 
early Christian world was deeply imbued with the truth and 
beauty of the doctrine of the unity of God, — the more espe- 
cially when reliable authority has declared that the farther 
back in the history of these centuries the mind pursues its 
search, the more prominent becomes the grand and glorious 



432 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

thousbt of the oneness of the common Father of the Universe. 
That the doctrine of the Trinity, as taught in the present day, 
is wholly at variance with truth, I feel fully satisfied in my own 
mind. But that the minds of the early Fathers should have 
fallen into this error is by no means singular, when their ante- 
cedents and surroundings are properly understood and appre- 
ciated. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and others among the Fath- 
ers, it is known were Platonists before they were Christians, 
and it is not to be wondered at that their early connections 
should have more or less colored their later faith. Scholars 
will tell you that many of the terms of the Platonic philosophy 
became incorporated into the phraseology of the early Chris- 
tians, producing much of confusion, and in some instances be- 
coming the means of transmitting to succeeding ages a cor- 
rupted idea of the original truth and beauty of the new relig- 
ion. Among the terms in use in the Platonic philosophy was 
the Greek word Trias, designed to convey some subtle idea in 
connection with the Platonic Trinity, but not intended to be 
applied to independent or equal persons. This word was first 
used in the discussions of the early Christians during the second 
century history informs us. It was translated into the Latin 
word Trinitas about the year 200, and of this word the Eng- 
lish word "Trinity" is a correct translation. The introduction 
of this and other words it is evident had a deleterious effect 
upon the minds of the early Fathers, ultimating in the substitu- 
tion of the doctrine of the Trinity as now taught, in lieu of 
the beautiful conception of the good man of Nazareth. In 
illustration of this idea the learned Dr. Elliot of St. Louis, in 
a lecture upon the Unity of God, quotes the following sentence 
from the celebrated Augustine : " I was in the dark," says 
this early Father of the Church, " with regard to the Trinity 
until I found the true doctrine concerning the divine word in 
a Latin translation of some Platonic writings which the provi- 
dence of God threw in my way." 

Plato admitted in his allegorical Trinity three hypostases, or 



THE mnTY OF GOD. 433 

modes of being. The first and greatest constituted the Supreme 
God ; the second was the Logos, or Word, or Divine Intelli- 
gence proceeding from the first ; the third was the Spirit, or 
Soul, of the world. 

The Jesuitical missionaries found a divinity similar to that of 
the Christians at Thibet. Among the Tartars God is called Kon- 
cio-ciok, the only God ; and likewise Kon-cio-sum, the threefold 
God. They also give God the titles of Om, Ha, Hum, inter- 
preted intelligence, might, power, or word, heart, love. 

In the Brahmanical religion of the Hindoos the Supreme Being 
is represented as being manifested in three beings, Brahma, 
Vishnu, and Siva; or the creating, preserving, and destroying 
power of the world. And it is taught in this religion, likewise, 
that the various changes of the world have been brought about 
by successive incarnations of Vishnu in the human form. 

"We learn also from what is termed the mythology of the past 
that the god Osiris of the Egyptians, the god Adonis of the 
Phoenicians, and the god Atys of the Phrygians periodically 
resigned and reassumed physical existence. Besides, it was a 
ecfmmon idea in the East for many centuries to fancy that great 
men or great heroes were descended from the gods. Jesus of 
Nazareth had prototypes in ^sculapius, Prometheus, Hercules, 
Apollo, Chrishna, and many others, including Apollonius of 
Tyana, who was born about the time of Christ, and, according 
to Lecky filled the then known world with the fame of his 
alleged miracles and sanctity. Hence, it can but be considered 
as inferable, it seems to me, that this entire idea of the Trinity, 
and of the especial incarnation of God m. one human form, as 
taught in Christendom (opposed as it is to the intelligence of 
the present age), must have been borrowed from the mysti- 
cisms and myths of the heathen world. 

And, again, with regard to the doctrine of the personality of the 
Holy Ghost, as suggested in the Council of Constantinople in the 
year 381, 1 feel fully satisfied that the claim made for it as a doc- 
trine of the Bible is equally erroneous with the consubstantiality 



434 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

of the Son with the Father. If, therefore, these two ideas are to 
remain a part of the religious faith of the future, they must 
alike be maintained upon the authority of the Catholic Fathers 
alone. And in this connection it may not be inappropriate to 
remark that the old mother Church has at least the virtue of 
consistency in her claim as an infallible interpreter for an infal- 
lible record, — such as the Protestant Church asserts the Bible 
to be. For it were certainly worse than folly to suppose the 
existence of an infallible revelation dependent for the applica- 
tion of its truths to the necessities of the race alone upon the 
decision of fallible judgments. Therefore, whilst the spiritual 
school ignores entirely the idea of infallibility in connection 
with finite minds, however much inspired, it adheres with equal 
firmness to the declaration that there can be no half-way posi- 
tion in the slightest degree tenable between the Catholic doc- 
trine of the authority of the Church over the soul of man on 
the one hand, and the conviction of the spiritual school as to the 
authority of the individual soul unto itself on the other. The 
eventual war of ideas, therefore, it seems to me, must be between 
these two propositions in the realm of thought. 

But I have said I do not accept the dogma of the personality 
of the Holy Ghost as a doctrine of the Bible. Let us examine 
for a moment. The Greek noun translated ghost in this con- 
nection is pneuma. The exact meaning of this word is wind, or 
breath. Certainly, it would be difficult to construe this word as 
constituting a personality, except through the forcing process 
dependent upon some preconceived idea. The Holy Breath of 
God would be a more appropriate and correct interpretation and 
translation of the Greek phrase to pneuma agion, rendered in 
the King James Bible, " the Holy Ghost." The spiritual phi- 
losopher can readily recognize the Holy Breath of God in the 
universally operative laws of nature, — a sin against which can- 
not be forgiven, but is invariably succeeded by its legitimate 
penalty. And through the same agency he can realize the 
omnipresence of the Everlasting Father. 



THE UNITY OF GOD. 435 

With regard to the true character of Jesus, a large propor- 
tion of the Spiritualists believe that in many respects he stands 
out in bold relief on the unrolled panorama of the past as a beau- 
tiful example to mankind. They believe that he brought "light 
and immortality to light" to the Jew, but not in the sense in 
which the expression is used by the theological mind of the 
day. In the time of Jesus, although entertained by one sect of 
the Jews who had derived it from the Persians, the doctrine of 
immortality was first propounded to that people as a subject of 
revelation. But the idea had been promulgated in the Gentile 
world a thousand years before the Nazarene was born. Zoro- 
aster, Plato, Pythagoras, Confucius, and others taught the doc- 
trine of a future state ; and it was the certainty of a conscious 
individuality beyond the grave that cheered the heart of Soc- 
rates when forced to bid adieu to the scenes of time. 

The term Christ, appended to the name of Jesus, was origi- 
nally used not as a part of the name, but as a descriptive 
phrase, — thus, Jesus, ^^e Christ ; John, ^^e Baptist. "Whom 
say ye that I am ? " asked Jesus of his disciples. Peter an- 
swering said, "The Christ of God," — Luke ix., 20. The 
English word Christ is derived from the Greek word Christos^ 
which signifies " anointed." The Hebrew word Messiah cor- 
responds with the Greek word Ghristos. The term was formerly 
applied to Jesus, in allusion to the Jewish custom of anointing 
with oil any who were designed for special or sacred duties. 
In a spiritual sense every human being is a Christ, for every 
human being, from the nature of man's origin, has been anointed 
at the ever living fountain of the Infinite. True, this eminent 
principle is exemplified more happily in some than in others, but 
that is no evidence that it is not inherited by all. It is, indeed, 
primo intuitie, the center on which the divine in man revolves. 
With regard to the special divinity, therefore, that is claimed 
for Jesus, I believe that it existed only in the ratio that he out- 
worked that divinity into practical life. And such was his life 
that he may be said to have been one of the most exalted relig- 



436 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

ious geniuses that ever developed upon the earth. He was 
what Theodore Parker beautifully termed " the possibility of 
the race made real." He was misrepresented by his enemies, 
misconstrued by his friends, and at last martyred for his prin- 
ciples ; and whether you reflect upon the devotion of his loving 
heart, as exhibited toward his personal friends, and toward his 
beautiful mother, as in his last moments he consigns her to the 
care of his best beloved disciple ; whether you listen to his 
noble utterances, which are still echoing across the pathway of 
eighteen centuries ; whether you stand by his side in his mo- 
ments of reflection, beneath the tall palm trees of old Judea ; 
or witness the tears of sympathy that fell from his eyes over 
the sins of Jerusalem ; or whether you walk by his side, as he 
climbs the rugged hill of Calvary, and there sheds his brave 
blood in behalf of principles he believed to be true,— -human 
appreciation can but admire the beauty of his self-denial, the 
profundity of his thought, the great depth of his emotional na- 
ture, the divinity of his noble manhood. Yes, the Spiritualist 
believes in the divinity of Jesus most fully, — in his practical 
divinity, which we should strive to imitate. Jesus was divine 
in his spiritual nature, being the Son of God. So, my friends, 
are all mankind the children of the one Infinite Father, and 

" His Spirit doth in thy spirit shine, 
As shines the sunlight in a drop of dew." 

Then, let us not call him God, 

" But rather call him by his chosen name, 
The ' Son of man,' who sought no higher aim ; 
And let us seek, in all that 's good and great, 
His noble life of love to imitate. 
And though he was a man of favored birth, 
A moral lighthouse on this darkened earth, 
Yet he, like other men, was once a boy, 
A helpless babe, his parents' hope and joy; 
"Which is the path the angels all have trod. 
Whilst we, with him and them, are sons of God ! " 



THE UNITY OF GOD. 437 

In conclusion, what shall I say, — what can a finite mind 
express with regard to the unsolved problem of Deity ? Infin- 
ite God! thy presence is made known throughout revolving 
universes ; the same unaltered, unalterable Divinity of mind 
that permeates through space, and by laws with thy own Being 
co-existent, all being else sustains. Great Principle of Good, 
wherever is thought, whether amid the adolescent minds of 
earth or the senates of the sky ; wherever is feeling, whether 
amid the incidental sufferings of the animal or the human, or 
amid the rejoicing oratorios of the higher life ; wherever is 
motion, whether in the muttered thunder of earth's diurnal revo- 
lution, or the pulses unseen of granite life, or, farther still, 
within the depths of being vast, where thought in the great 
infinitude is lost, and the human mind, overreached, essays no 
further flight, — even there art Thou felt and known, All-Crea- 
tive Principle ! 

The Spiritualist believes that Infinite love, Infinite wisdom, 
and Infinite power are ruling throughout all worlds, forever 
inspiring both the realm of matter and the realm of mind, exist- 
ing above all, and through all, and in all, as St. Paul declares, 
omniscient, omnipresent, incomprehensible, — one eternal prin- 
ciple, which ever ruleth all things right ; and which is compre- 
hended in all that is. Indeed, in the beautiful language of mod- 
ern inspiration, 

"All matter is God's tongue ! 
And from its motion God's thoughts are sung ! 
The realms of space are the octave bars, 
And the music notes are the suns and stars. 

Creation, like a new-born infant, lies 

Near to God's heart. Sight, sense, the inward eyes. 

The moral reason, — all declare how dear 

Creation is to the great Father Soul. 

Its little pulses from His bosom roll, 

O'erflowed and harmonized. Its lips are fed 

From God, and on His breast it pillows its young head. 



438 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 

There 's not a pirate in the Indian ocean, 
God dwells not in, with tides of pure emotion 
Seekini^ to hallow, sanctify, inspire, 
And lift him from that hell of inward fire, 
Whose scorching madness desolates, defiles, 
Degrades his spirit. 

In those barbarous isles, 
Where gory cannibals lap human blood, 
And gnash their teeth upon half-living food 
Of men and brothers, God is not afar. 
He worketh there, as where the angels are, 
Seeking to call from out those caverns drear 
Bright spirits fitted for the seventh sphere, — 
Seeking to change the human wolves to men, 
While angels breathe from heaven. Amen, Amen ! 

O Goodness Infinite ! Goodness immense ! 

And love that passeth knowledge ! Words are vain I 

Language is lost in wonders so sublime ! 

Come thou, expressive Silence^ muse His praise.** 



^5«^?1^' 



